


Smokey The Bear Has Nothing on You-Oneshots

by psychicScavenger



Series: Smokey the Bear Has Nothing On You [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cats, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Domestic Fluff, Drinking, Family Fluff, Gay Keith (Voltron), Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kindergarten teacher Lance, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Sleepwalking, Slice of Life, firefighter keith, older klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2018-10-20 19:20:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10669146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychicScavenger/pseuds/psychicScavenger
Summary: Hey so this is a series of oneshots during the time of Keith and Lance dating as well as some other stuff! You don't have to necessarily read the main fic, the oneshots are fairly decent to read on their own with some references to what happened in the main fic, its not important to the plotlines of the oneshots, mostly its used as a time estimate. I wanted to explore more of Keith and Lance's relationship as well as throw in some more cute moments between the two.Edit: This is not the actual storyline so don't expect a story-like plot between all the chapters, there might be a few connected to each other but thats it. If you want to read the actual storyline or learn what's happened, heres alinkto the actual fic, you can skip ahead to certain chapters if you'd like. Thank you guys for understanding, hopefully I'll update again soon!Chapter 17: A Klancemas twoshot for oneshot deal! Basically a two fer one coupon. I figured why not since its Christmas and this is the last chapter, a perfect way to end the year with our two favorite heros being fluffy during the holiday season.





	1. Mothman has Nothing On You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance have a movie night when things get interesting but cuddles are shared.

“Well that was unsettling.” 

“Lance, you picked the movie.”

Keith turned to face his boyfriend who was pouting on the worn out couch now, curled up against Keith’s side as the movie ended.

“You can’t just not have a scary movie at movie night Keith, its the law of..uh, movie laws…Or something.” Lance stated pointedly ignoring Keith’s dumbfounded expression.

“Or something. How did you become a teacher for little kids?” Keith snorted pulling out the remote and scrolling through the Netflix screen.

“With faith, trust and pixie dust and yes I tell my kids that whenever they ask me.” Lance replied now texting someone, probably his family, on his phone while Keith scrolled the available options since it was now his turn to pick a movie. They started a movie night with their friends, that eventually became small dates once a week with just them, or as Pidge calls it ‘Klance movie night’ which Keith didn’t get and Lance just ignored their teasing. At first the others would join them, but since their movie sessions started getting..steamy the others have been mostly letting them have their space which Keith certainly enjoyed as well as Lance.

He continued to scroll through the options not seeing anything catching his interest till he reached the documentaries section and a new cryptid feature popped up. Keith’s eyes widened.

It was a documentary talking about the ten creepiest cryptids in america, while Keith would usually roll his eyes, because he knew all about the cryptids in Northern America, he was curious as to whether Mothman made number one. 

He was so damn tired of Bigfoot, he was overrated for a cryptid!

With Lance still messing with his phone, not paying enough attention to reject Keith’s pick, Keith hurriedly clicked on it and watched as it started up before falling back against the couch with Lance once again cuddling against him.

“So what did you pick?” Lance asked curious which Keith hesitated and when Lance gave him a questioning glance, the documentary started up. Lance groaned as he heard the word cryptids and gave Keith an accusatory glare.

“Keith not another Mothman documentary! We watched ten this past month! Thats more than I ever wanted to hear about Mothman in my entire life.” Lance pouted which Keith rolled his eyes.

“It’s not about Mothman..specifically. It’s about the creepiest cryptids in North America and I want to see if Mothman made the list because he deserves to be recognized.” Lance chuckles as he cuddled closer to Keith, not paying attention to the people on the documentary building up the intensity to the creepiness ahead.

Keith wrapped an arm around him in response, wanting Lance to be close as well, the other man practically in Keith’s lap with the blanket draped around both of them. Lance turned his head to check on the cats, seeing them curled up together as well, snoozing peacefully which Lance couldn’t help but awe at.

As the documentary continued with the dramatizations, and what Lance considered unnecessary intense story telling, he groaned as Mothman popped up only to be shushed by Keith whose gaze was glued to the screen. Lance made a disgruntled noise and smushed his face in Keith’s neck, wanting a little attention only for Keith to rake his fingers in Lances hair but didn’t tear his gaze from the screen. Lance sighed settling for the gentle fingers in his hair and settled to watch the documentary. One of the ‘scientists’ started explaining about cryptids which Lance was amusedly watching Keith roll his eyes and shake his head, probably from the misinformation the person was saying.

“Christ its like they took the first definition they found off Google and gave it to the person to read right then! Amateurs.” Keith muttered under his breath, making Lance snort in response.

“Awww babe, you know they can’t help it, all the good actors are out doing fake mermaid documentaries for Discovery Channel. Besides, what cryptid would be creepier than Mothman...Unless it’s Mothman’s ghost?” Lance joked until the first image of a cryptid popped up, something about the Fouke Monster, and Lance promptly shut up as a chill crawled up his spine.

As Lance watched the reenactment of the first sighting of the Fouke Monster he couldn’t help feel a creepy crawly feeling pass over him which prompted him to wrap his arms around Keith’s middle, missing the small knowing smile that graced Keith’s lips.

About five cryptids later, and a small stretch/bathroom break on Keith’s behalf, the two were on the couch again, Lance more huddled in his blanket bundle, eyes glued to the screen in confusion and mild fear as the show droned on about its next cryptid, the Jersey Devil.

'Hey, we can’t have a movie night with the light’s on Keith! We can’t have a movie night without a scary movie Keith! We can’t not have popcorn with the movie, thats barbaric Keith!' What the hell was I thinking, Lance thought to himself as he shrunk to himself a bit more as the creeping feeling crawled up the back of his neck again.

The creeping feeling got worse as Lance felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. With visions of a creepy monster, or worse a spider, he felt something sturdy press against his shoulder and neck causing Lance to leap up screaming, popcorn flying everywhere.

Lance breathed heavily, turning around only to find a startled Keith still sitting where he was with one of his hands raised where Lance's shoulder had been. The cats, who had also been disturbed by Lance’s scream, were both blinking sleepily at their respective humans before deciding they were too tired and curled back into their cuddled positions together to sleep more.

“Why are you screaming?” Keith asks, chuckling a little at the sight of Lance and the girly shriek he just heard. Lance pointed his finger at Keith accusingly.

“Y-you did that on purpose! You were trying to scare me Keith! Not cool! You know how I am with ghosts!”

“I wasn’t trying to scare you! I was just trying to get closer to you..because I liked the cuddling earlier.” Keith pointed out looking away briefly, face flushing which made Lance pause and then deflate in realization.

“Oh…oops.” He glanced away feeling how hot his face was becoming as he idly toed all the popcorn pieces together in one pile. Keith watched him amused for a moment before sighing and giving Lance a gentle look.

“Lance is the documentary scaring you?” He asked concerned. He hadn’t meant to actually scare his boyfriend, he just really liked this stuff, but if it was creeping out his boyfriend too much…

“Wha? Nah! I’m good, this stuff just..freaks me out a little. I’m fine.” Lance coughed trying to keep the shake from his voice which Keith raised an eyebrow at.

“So you want to keep watching then?” Keith asked while Lance sat back down on the couch, this time, leaning closer to Keith who placed his arm around him as he tried to earlier.

“Yeah sure! At this rate, I bet Mothman is going to be the number one creepiest cryptid for sure! Although I think that title rightfully belongs to you.” Lance teased Keith a little before cracking a small laugh at Keith’s frown.

“Mothman is coming for you and I won’t stop him when he snatches you away.” Keith warned which Lance rolled his eyes before kissing under Keith’s jaw.

“Yeah right, if Mothman came looking for me, you’d use me as bait just to get a picture of him, then kick his ass if he tried to run off with me.” Lance stated proudly which Keith sighed.

“Just keep telling yourself that honey.” Keith shrugged much to Lance’s brief disappointment before he wrapped his arms tighter around him, squeezing him gently before they restarted the documentary.

As the documentary continued on, Lance was easing himself closer and closer to Keith till he was literally sitting in Keith’s lap, which was awkward with his long legs tucked around his boyfriend, but Keith didn’t seem to mind. He was even welcoming the closeness as he scoffed at the people in the documentary, casually mentioning some things that weren’t true or how a reenactment was too dramatic than what had actually happened in real life.

Lance however was just internally screaming about the idea of him meeting any of these cryptids in real life.

After it was finally over and Keith turned the tv off, Lance was frozen in his comfy seat unaware of the gentle prodding from his boyfriend as he asked if Lance was alright.

“Yeah mhmm I’m fine. Just peachy, why wouldn’t I be?” Lance asked, trying to sound casual which Keith gave him a raised eyebrow in return.

“Well you’ve been sitting in my lap since they mentioned the skunk ape, made a tiny shrill noise, and you've been clinging tighter to me since.” Keith pointed out which Lance scoffed.

“Pftt Keith please, I’m not scared, I just..really like...Your abbs.” Lance mumbled grimacing at his terrible excuse. Keith was obviously amused.

“My abbs?”

“Yeah! They look sick, do you even lift bro?” Lance cringed. 'Jesus christ that was awful,' he thought miserable.

Keith gave him a contemplating look over before nodding his head, deciding to play along.

“Yeah I do lift, wanna see?”

Before Lance could come up with a retort, he felt Keith’s arms wrapping around his waist and under his knees, blanket and all, as he lifted Lance bridal style. They staggered a bit as Keith got up from the couch but after he held tight to his grip on his boyfriend, he smirked down at Lance who was shocked to say the least, sputtering to say something.

“D-did you seriously just lift me?!” Lance asked in disbelief. He wrapped his arms around Keith’s neck, holding tight in case he fell but Keith was surprisingly stronger than he thought. Must be from lifting weights and all those times he saved people from fires..Lance remembered, practically drooling. Keith nodded from his question and began walking in the direction towards the bedroom, stepping carefully around any stray popcorn kernels and their curled up lesbian cats.

“Yep! You’re surprisingly light despite how tall you are..and with how much you eat.” Keith noted much to Lance’s annoyance. He carried his now squirming boyfriend to the bedroom enjoying how Lance was ogling at his biceps, and dumped him comically on the bed.

Keith chuckled as Lance gave him a displeased look, but strike a comical, 'come hither' pose before he jumped on the bed as well, crawling on top of his cute boyfriend who immediately pulled him closer, giving him a long kiss.

They were both in their pajamas already so Keith just curled up against Lance after the kiss, pulling the blankets over both of them as they got situated and comfy against each other.

“Sleep tight, don’t let Goatman steal you in the night.” Keith chuckled which Lance huffed not amused, rolling over with his back facing Keith.

“Not funny.” He mumbled but received no teasing answer in response as Keith was already drifting off to sleep, his arms loosely curled around Lance’s waist. Lance turned back over, facing the empty dark room that had never once creeped him out. Except for that first night by himself, and he had watched a ghost movie with Hunk and stayed up almost the whole night because of that. Thanks Hunk.

Lance was a firm believer in getting a good nights rest, not just something that was part of his beauty regime, yet he found himself distracted with thoughts of Goatman, one of the cryptids from the documentary which had ranked at number four. Mothman sadly had only come in at second whereas Bigfoot was ranked number one creepiest cryptid. Keith had angrily mentioned that Bigfoot was overrated which was pretty funny to Lance at the time, but now he couldn’t stop thinking about those cryptids and which one was geographically closest and could possibly sneak into his crappy apartment.

If Mothman showed up, who knows what Lance would do. He certainly wouldn’t fight it and he hoped Keith would have the sense not to fight a terrifying winged monster but then again its Keith. He’d probably dump Lance and run off with the cryptid, or the cryptid would steal Keith away because who wouldn’t steal Keith, Keith’s hot and Lance would be left alone-

Lance flinched when he felt a soothing pressure against his chest and looked down to see Keith had moved his hand upwards from its position at his waist earlier. It was rubbing soothing circles on Lance’s chest which Lance admitted was making him feel calmer and safer.

So he happily sighed and leaned back into Keith’s embrace which he in turn pulled Lance closer, sleepily kissing Lance’s shoulder and murmuring good night to him before passing out again. Lance drifted off soon after that, feeling safe and happy in Keith’s embrace.


	2. Unintentional Drinking part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is part 1 of some drunken shenanigans between the gang. Also, its based off a true story just some spicing up to match the characters personalities.

The bar was dim with only the neon signs advertising the different beers decorating across the bar counter where drinks were being made and guzzled down at the bar countertop. There were some small lamps hanging from the ceiling here and there, as well as a few small table lamps sitting at a few booths to add more light. Multiple TV screens sat in corners where some patrons watched an active game going on, a few disgruntled groans and cries of frustration would carry across the space, interrupting whatever story Pidge was currently sharing with them about work. 

Lance didn’t pay as much attention as he should have since they were out to celebrate Pidge’s birthday after all. It wasn’t everyday your friend turned 24 when the rest of you was close to hitting the 30s. Shiro didn’t count since he was technically only 6, being a leap year baby and all.

Anyways, back to the source of Lance’s distraction, who was currently sitting next to him, listening with rapt attention to Pidge’s story, while sporting the dark grey v-neck that showed off his collarbones and tight jeans that showed off the curve of his ass. Lance had always been an ass guy and right now he wanted to squeeze it so badly, maybe if he just reached over and-

“Lance! Are you even paying attention?”

Lance glanced up, hand halfway reaching towards Keith’s ass, though judging the look on Keith’s face, Lance guessed that Keith knew what he was trying to do, the disapproving frown but amused eyes being his main clues.

Lance sighed, dropping his hand and giving Keith a look of exasperation.

“Well damn Keith! What am I supposed to do with you sitting here looking all hot? Keep my hands to myself? Geez.” Lance rolled his eyes, ignoring the scoff and indignant expression taking over Keith’s face.

“Wow..thats a really hard one to answer, I’m gonna go with...Yes?”

“Pshh. Whatever. I’ll just squeeze it when we’re alone later tonight.”

“Yeah when we’re alone. Together. So now’s not exactly the right time.” Keith reminded him harshly, yet Lance could see a familiar twinkle of playfulness behind his onyx orbs gazing at him and felt anticipation rise up inside him.

“Oh I think now is completely the right time. Tell me Hunk, how much did you bet that they wouldn’t be so couple-y tonight?” Pidge asked, now the one sporting a smug grin as Hunk sighed and fumbled around in his pocket to retrieve his wallet.

“Dammit! I had high hopes that Keith would shut that shit down.” Hunk complained as he forked over the twenty dollars to Pidge who snatched it with the utmost glee and made a show of rubbing it and smelling it, much to Hunk’s displeasure. Shiro merely looked on in amusement at the two, all of them ignoring the two identical stares from the aforementioned couple.

“Um hello? You’ve been betting on us the whole night?” Lance asked, his voice rising slightly.

“Dude we’ve been betting since before you two got together. It’s been kind of an on and off thing you know.” Hunk replied, waving his hand like it was pretty casual. Keith snorted before throwing Hunk and Pidge what he hoped was an intimidating glare.

“I can’t believe you guys have been doing this, thats so immature of you both. Shiro, you’re the dad of the group, do something!” Keith demanded. Shiro simply shrugged, giving Keith and Lance a helpless look.

“I can’t control you crazy kids anymore than the simple laws of society…Even those barely have any effect controlling you clowns considering SOMEONE nearly hacked into the FBI’s private network again.” Shiro eyed Pidge, clearly disgruntled about the whole thing which Pidge just scoffed in response.  

“Hey now, that was my little sibling’s proudest moment from the third grade, don’t be a hater now.” They turned towards the source of the voice, a newcomer who looked exactly like Pidge only slightly taller. Pidge's eyes widened as they gazed at the stranger before their face split into a huge grin. 

“Matt!” Pidge practically screeched and jumped over the table completely, startling the shit out of everyone sitting there, to launch themselves at their brother, hugging his neck and upper torso with their whole body. Matt chuckled and hugged back, whispering a few words for only the two of them to hear before Pidge pulled away, a huge grin on their face. After that, introductions went around except for Shiro who remembered Matt from their days working for the air force. Matt, who was still working as an engineering technician there, and Shiro being a ex-pilot.

“So what brings everyone to the bar on my siblings birthday, considering they don’t drink much in public spaces anymore?” Matt asked curious, grabbing a seat next to Shiro and taking a sip of his beer.

“Uhh what do you mean, anymore? Pidge has been drunk at my place several times?” Lance asked confused.

“Lance, I’ve had drinks, but I’ve never been drunk. There’s a reason for that.” Pidge stated, fiddling with their hard cider.

“Well whats the reason then? Because honestly, I’m having trouble picturing Pidgeotto here, who single handedly on their twenty-first birthday, got a whole bar of people to sing the Pokemon theme song with them after a couple shots of whiskey.” Hunk pointed out much to Pidge’s annoyed sigh. Matt shook his head amused.

“Ohhh Pidge. You mean you never told them?” Matt teased which Pidge gave him a glare.

“What do you think shit for brains?” Matt simply chuckled while everyone else looked on with confusion and mild interest.

“I want to hear this story.” Lance declared everyone else nodding in agreement as they turned to Matt, interest spreading across their faces much to Pidge’s dismay.

“Ugh fine, go ahead, tell them. I’m not ashamed, its you who should be ashamed Matty, just remember that.” Pidge threatened. Matt sniffed giving Pidge a cool look.

“Eh, you were fine. Anyways what happened was I accidentally got Pidge drunk…Twice. When they were underaged.” Matt said simply and took another swig of his drink while the others stared in disbelief and mild confusion.

“Matt how the hell did you get Pidge accidentally drunk?” Shiro asked frowning as he looked back between Pidge’s glaring expression and Matt’s sheepish one.

“Well it was unintentional, you know how every older sibling lets their younger sibling take a few swigs of a beer every now and then?” Lance and Hunk both nodded, understanding with Shiro shrugging slightly and Keith looking at all of them absolutely confused.

“Well you see, I was of age to drink at the time and Pidge here was only fourteen. Only a junior in high school, and me being the proud older brother at the time, decided to let Pidge come along to my dungeons and dragons group with some college buddies. Well my friends had made a fresh batch of a certain drink only made for gatherings as large as this-”

“Matt there was only four other people.”

“Shh I’m telling the story kiddo. Anyways, the drink of choice that night was called PJ. Or the more sophisticated term was known as party juice.” The others all scrunched their faces to some degree, each having their own blurry experience from such a drink and nodding in solemn understanding.

“Wait so how did Pidge accidentally drink some, if you knew what the drink was?” Keith pointed out.

“Well thats the funny part, you see I, the responsible older brother had brought along a simple juice for Pidge to drink, since I was not going to let them drink that shit with the wackos I hung around. Only the plan didn’t go so well.”

“The dumbass forgot which cup had the regular juice in it so he accidentally gave me his cup filled to the brim with PJ. So after the first few sips I was completely gone, while Matt over here kept drinking the regular juice and saying the alcohol must’ve been pretty weak or ‘his tolerance was finally building up’. So I’m there, getting into an argument with the dungeon master over the roll of the dice, standing on the table, slurring over my arguments and everything, while Matt’s just sitting there like one chucklefuck saying, ‘wow this alcohol has practically no taste in it’.” Pidge gave Matt the finger while the others slowly cracked up, eventually full on letting out belly laughs at the idea of Matt sipping his juice happily with a screaming Pidge on top of a table.

“Eventually I realized what happened and took Pidge home but after they kept wandering around the neighborhood, yelling at our neighbor’s plants, they finally got to bed around three am.” Matt ruffled Pidge’s hair, ignoring the hiss Pidge was giving him.

“Is that why you called out sick one time even though we had a huge test for English?” Lance asked after his laughs died down. Pidge merely grumbled a ‘Yes.’ making them crack up again.

“That was only the beginning of what eventually became to be known as the first incident of Matt getting me unintentionally drunk. What do you have to say for yourself Matt?” Pidge demanded. The others grinned in response as Matt just shrugged his shoulder and muttered, “Whoops.”

“Pidge that is hilarious and I’m kinda surprised you can’t hold your alcohol well if you were gone after a few sips.” Lance chuckled giving them a smug grin when Pidge glared in their direction.

“PJ has alot of alcohol mixed in Lance. It’s basically a giant tub of alcohol with some fruit juice and fruit. Besides it’s not like you can hold your alcohol that well either sometimes.” Pidge accused, ignoring Lance’s shocked squawk as he held a hand to his chest, insulted.

“Keith are you hearing this? Pidge has insulted my honor!”

“What honor? And honestly they’re right, sometimes you can’t handle it well like you think you can.” Keith stated, taking a swig of his drink, ignoring Lance’s offended gasp.

“Name one time!” Lance demanded but shrunk back when the others all spoke at once.

“Well that one time on my birthday two months ago,”

“You had maybe two sips of that mojito dude,”

“One of the first times I met you, you were pretty gone.”

“Lance, remember that one glass of wine you had at that party,”

“I asked Keith! Not you guys, and that was some strong wine Matt, your parents need to keep that shit on lockdown.” Lance replied, flushing a bit. Keith merely smirked, and lazily took Lance’s hand in his under the table, although the others could tell they were totally holding hands.

“Well the time I’m thinking of was two weeks ago when we went out just to get a few drinks.” Keith mentioned, noticing the way Lance stiffened and turned to Keith with horror.

“Please no,” Lance began. Pidge merely shushed him and motioned Keith to keep going. Keith smirked, leaning forward to tell the others what went down that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So who else is excited for Matt Holt to make his debut for season three?!?! Holt siblings unite!!


	3. Unintentional Drinking part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of Unintentional Drinking! Keith tells the story of Lance getting wasted. Enjoy!

“Lance, I don’t think you should drink anymore.” Keith stated concerned as his boyfriend flopped over the table, surprisingly not knocking over their drinks.

“Keeeeiiithh whys everything so hot here?” Lance whined, pulling on the sweater he was wearing.

Keith sighed as he once again, took his boyfriend’s hands in his, pulling them away from the hem of his sweater, knowing Lance was just gonna try to pull it off again.

“You had alot of alcohol dummy, thats why. It’s like thirty degrees outside, you’re not taking this off. You’re wearing nothing under it.” Keith sternly reminded him ignoring how cute Lance looked with that pout on his face.

“Well I had to drink alot dummy! That asshole challenged me to a drinking competition!” Lance pointed across the bar, nearly tipping the chair, and himself, over with Keith catching him just in time.

“Okay we’re going home now. C’mon Lance.” Keith got up, helping his struggling boyfriend out of the chair that was apparently now trying to kill him, according to Lance.

“Don’t 'Lance' me. I know that you know, that asshole was making goo goo eyes at you! So I had to challenge him to a manly duel of drinking! I basically saved your life.” Lance poked Keith’s chest to further prove his point with Keith looking at him unamused. Sighing for the hundredth time that night, Keith put his arms around Lance holding him up and facing this ‘supposed asshole’.

“Lance once again, thats just your reflection in the mirror.” Keith repeated as Lance gazed at himself in the mirror confused.

“Wai-wha??” Lance asked, suddenly dizzy till he made eye contact with his reflection and got annoyed all over again, putting his arms around Keith in a possessive way. Which Keith was kind of turned on a little by Lance’s manhandling even though he kept missing his ass and was instead groping Keith’s thigh.

“Alright as ‘romantic’ as your groping is, you’re still too rowdy to take home right now. I need to calm you down some…Hey Lance do you want a beer?” Keith asked, placing Lance back in the chair. Lance looked up sharply, eyes shining with unshed tears as if Keith had asked him to marry him right then.

“Keith, you’re so wonderful, thank you! Yes I want another beer.” Lance cried, attaching himself to Keith all over again, this time trying to kiss him, and missing his mouth by a couple inches below and instead was kissing Keith’s neck. Keith snorted, but allowed Lance to continue his exploration of Keith’s neck, kissing it tenderly and whispering beautiful words about it in Spanish, making Keith flush. He signaled to the waitress to bring another beer, which she did with a smirk and Keith eventually convinced Lance to stop sucking his neck and to start sucking on the bottle instead.

With Lance drinking happily, reminding Keith of a toddler holding a bottle of formula, he waited till Lance’s eyelids started drooping and his drinking slowed down.

Finally, with a few more sips left, Keith knew Lance was done and after leaving a decent tip and paying their tab, he got Lance to stand up, slinging an arm around the lanky mans waist and taking one arm, pulling it across his shoulder. Keith nudged them towards the door with Lance stumbling slightly but more so out of tiredness than drunkenness at this point.

“You’re doing good Lance, almost there.” Keith encouraged, thanking god they had taken Lance’s car tonight and not his motorcycle. Last thing he needed to worry about was finding a way to keep his intoxicated boyfriend balanced on a motorcycle and also drive it without crashing. As they neared the door, Keith felt Lance stiffen and stand up straighter, his grip on Keith’s shirt loosening. Keith glanced over curious, hoping Lance was starting to sober up, even though there was no way in hell he’d sober up that quick, like c’mon Keith, when he looked ahead and blanched.

“Lance, no.”

“Lance yes!”

“No, c’mon, you’re not going to be an idiot now. Let’s go.” Keith tugged on Lance’s hand but weirdly, his boyfriend didn’t stumble over only kept his stance and stalked forward with interest, you wouldn’t think he was drunk at all.

Until you realized his next move and knew this guy had to be completely wasted.

Lance kept walking forward, squaring his shoulders as he walked over to the snarky dude standing by the exit, giving Lance a challenging glance. His intimidating broad shoulders and large forearms would normally make Lance run the opposite way, but this asshole picked the wrong night to make bedroom eyes at his beloved!

‘Yeah, I’ll show this clown. Give him a piece of my mind. He’s staring right at me, unblinking. Trying to challenge me huh? Well if this chicken wants to fight, this rooster ain’t backing dow-'

“Ow!” Lance cried out as he ran into the hulking figure. He stumbled back, hitting the ground with a groan, Keith quickly dropping to his side, grabbing him under his arms and hoisting Lance to a standing position.

“Lance what were you trying to do?” Keith asked confused. Lance just gave him a look that said; 'wasn’t it obvious’.

“I’m tryna fight this mofo. Makin' bedroom eyes an' shit.” Lance mumbled, rubbing his head where he hit it. Keith pushed Lance’s hair from his forehead, a small frown on his face as he felt the small bump and shook his head.

“Lance theres no one here to fight with.” Keith stated pointedly. Lance gave him a befuddled look which Keith wouldn’t lie and say it didn’t make him smile and bite his lip to keep from laughing.

“What about the dude who was standing here? I just crashed into the brute!” Lance explained.

Keith furrowed his brows before shaking his head and pointing to the supposed brute Lance was talking about.

“Lance…This is a cardboard standee of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.” Keith grabbed the standee, placing it back up where it was before.

Lance just blinked confused and Keith just took his boyfriends hand, dragging him away outside, before he could crash into something else again.

Keith finally got Lance into the car, buckling him safely and ignoring Lance’s grabby hands and suggestions of 'activities' for them to do 'wink wink'. Keith promptly shut the door and got in the drivers seat, turning the car on and quickly taking them home before Lance could suggest anything else.

“The only activity we’ll be doing is sleeping together-”

“Yay!!!”

“In bed, fully clothed, as we’re actually going to sleep doofus.”

“Booooo.”

After driving and dealing with a drunk Lance singing his own haunting rendition of Memories, they reached Keith’s apartment, deciding Lance’s deathtrap of an apartment was the last place ‘safe’ for a drunk person.

If Keith thought getting Lance out of the bar would be the most troubling part of the night, he completely forgot about the part of hassling Lance into his apartment and somehow getting him dressed for bed. Knowing Lance, he had an overnight bag already packed and in the backseat of his car, complete with blue lion slippers and a sleeping mask, the dork. Keith somehow wrangled his boyfriend up the stairs and into his apartment, thankfully he wasn’t loud to disturb the neighbors, but the next problem was getting Lance ready for bed.

“Lance, stop you really need to sleep.” Keith slapped Lance’s hands away from his shirt again, while he promptly pulled off the sweater that was making his boyfriend, in Lance’s words 'super hot wink wink nudge nudge’ and trying to wrangle his pajama shirt onto the flailing man. It was like he suddenly had octopus arms with the way they were batting away Keith's hands. 

“But Keeeeitth, you need to get undressed too! For sleepy times.” Lance whined, his fingers going for the buttons on Keith’s shirt again.

"And sexy times 'wink'."

"Stop saying 'wink' out loud."

Keith watched and waited as Lance tried and failed again to unbutton the top two buttons of the shirt.

“Theres like a million buttons on this shirt dude.” Lance noted fascinated, after about five minutes, he gave up at that point, just rubbing his hands over Keith’s torso, admiring the feel of his abs under the shirt material. Keith watched amused as Lance floundered around trying to figure out the shirt again and failing eventually just using it as an excuse to touch and hold Keith. Smiling, Keith got the rest of Lance’s pajamas on and led him to lay down on his bed, ditching his own clothes and deciding to sleep in his boxers, he crawled in beside Lance who was passed out now as soon as his head hit the pillow. Keith pulled the covers over them both, tucking the covers around Lance especially and kissing him on the forehead. Despite Lance’s obnoxious behavior tonight, it was kind of fun in a way. He had never taken care of Lance or anyone else like this before and it felt pretty nice. Keith smiled, remembering Lance trying to fight not only his reflection, but a cardboard standee of a famous wrestler turned actor which he knew he would have to tell the others about soon.

The next morning however was not so nice as Keith woke up to the unpleasant sounds of Lance releasing the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl.

 

                                                                                   ______________________________________

 

“Dude!!”

“Lance come on, you’re a teacher now.”

“Wow The Rock, seriously?”

“Yeah, even Shiro couldn’t take that guy.”

Shiro gave Matt a calculating gaze before turning away sighing softly.

“Yeah I have no chance there.” He agreed solemnly as he took a sip of his beer.

“Okay so picking a fight with your own reflection and The Rock-”

“A cardboard standee of The Rock as I must point out.”

“Thank you Hunk. And a cardboard standee, admittedly wasn’t that bright and I was pretty hammered then. But Keith is not the precious, innocent angel you all think of him as!” Lance pointed at Keith who gave him a defeated, exhausted glance while Lance merely had heat in his eyes.

“Pretty much none of us think that about Keith.” Hunk mentioned, ignoring Keith’s ‘Hey!’

“Anyways, Keithy boy here, has been a little rowdy himself before and not the cool, collected persona he likes to come across as.” Lance grinned giving Keith a knowing glance as Keith’s eyes widened in realization.

“Lance, no.”

“Lance yes.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of Lance being so drunk he thought his reflection was another person flirting with Keith amuses me too much.


	4. Unintentional Drinking part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance tells the story of Keith's drunken misadventure. And Shiro makes a masturbation joke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fucking forgot to upload part 3! Damn....Anyways enjoy!

“Keith! Please come down! You’re gonna hurt yourself!”

“No!”

“Please Keith? I’ll be your boyfriend?”

“We’re already dating!”

‘Damn, thought that would work,’ Lance thought bitterly. He nervously chewed on his thumbnail while staring up at Keith who was high up in a tree. He was pretty tipsy, but with Keith sporting the half empty wine bottle in his left hand, chugging more every minute, Lance knew he would soon be drunk off his ass. ‘What even started all of this,’ Lance thought, his memory flashing to their earlier activities.

They had settled in for another Klance movie night, watching some Planet Earth-type documentary on the Great Barrier Reef. Lance had put his foot down, telling Keith any cryptid feature for movie nights was limited to once a month. Keith hadn’t really cared, since he knew how freaked out Lance was about cryptids and ghosts..and also spiders in general.

“They have too many legs Keith! And too many eyes!” Lance had cried when Keith simply asked him. Keith hadn’t expected a whole powerpoint presentation with eighties graphics.

Lance sighed, focusing on the current situation, turned to face his boyfriend up in the tree and saw him swaying more, some of the wine disappearing. Furrowing his brow in concern, Lance paced underneath the tree, Keith occasionally shouting out things like ‘Save the fucking planet!’ or ‘It’s too damn hot! And not because I’m drunk, its cuz of global warming, or some shit.’ Lance faced the tree, a question formed in his head.

“Keith what are you so upset about anyways?” Lance asked, eyebrow raised. He wasn’t judging thank you very much, but he did regret not taking his phone with him to record Keith’s hilarious behavior for blackmail purposes.

“Australia.” Keith hiccuped before taking another swig from the bottle.

...Well that was a new one.

Lance gave Keith an exasperated arm gesture, hoping his oh so articulate boyfriend would share more. He did after some more prompting,

“Australia?”

“Australia Lance. The water, place with the Great Barrier Reef.” Keith explained, well kinda.

“Why are you upset about the Great Barrier Reef?” Lance asked patient. He grew up with seven siblings, and worked with five year olds, patience was his middle name.

“Because the Great Barrier Reef… **IS DYING!** ” Keith sobbed, hugging the base of the tree and idly stroking it. Lance blinked up at him confused and also distressed seeing his boyfriend so sad.

“Oh Keith, its going to be okay, they’re making conservation efforts to help it and everything! There’s still hope..maybe.” Lance muttered that last part. Keith sniffled and turned to gaze down at Lance, his eyes and nose both red which looked adorable according to Lance to be honest.

“Really? You’re not just saying that?” Keith asked fidgeting, still hugging the tree too from what Lance noticed.

“Nah dude, I believe it! Our generation is trying to help preserve the environment, I’m sure we’re doing everything we can to help the Great Barrier Reef. Now will you please come down?” Lance smiled hopefully. Keith shook his head.

“Naahhh…” Keith took one last swig from the bottle before hugging it to his chest, between him and the tree. Lance stood at the bottom, gaping up at his ridiculous boyfriend. He was done with this shit.

“Are you kidding me? Okay you know what? I’m coming up there!” Lance yelled, starting to climb up the tree, which was slightly more difficult than he assumed it would be.

Jesus, how the hell did Keith get up here wasted out of his mind? Keith voiced his protests and concerns, mostly telling Lance to fuck off, he had everything under control, Lance was just going to hurt himself.

Lance being Lance, scoffed at all of this, climbing higher and higher till that fateful moment happened where he lost his footing.

‘Shit,’ Lance thought before crashing down to the ground, landing on his prized rump, with a pained “Ow!” Lance rubbed his sore backside, a small pout on his face considering that was not the type of soreness his ass welcomed.

“Lance!” Keith screeched and swiftly climbed down/fell more gracefully than a drunk person should be capable. Lance watched in horror as Keith hit the ground roughly, face planting into the ground for a second before staggering to a standing position and sitting next to Lance.

“Keith what the fuck babe?!” Lance cried, his mother hen senses activating as he checked his boyfriend all over for any injuries. Keith just smiled lazily as Lance’s hands roamed over his torso.

“Oh I see. Playtime already huh?” He asked leaning in to nuzzle his face next to Lance’s. Lance blushed and merely pushed Keith back some, noticing the light trickle of blood coming from Keith’s ear.

“Not now smooth operator! I got to get you to the hospital! You may have a concussion.” Lance stated firmly, standing up and grabbing Keith’s hand only for Keith to wince and pull it away sharply, cradling it to his chest. Looks like he may have sprained it, Lance noted, biting his lip.

“Wow..it hurts.” Keith blinked, staring at his hand in fascination. Lance rolled his eyes and gently pulled Keith up by the upper arms, and led him to the car.

Disposing of the wine bottle and finally getting Keith to sit in the passenger seat, they finally made it to the urgent care, Lance explaining the situation ignoring the nurse’s judgmental stare as he filled out the form. Keith sat next to him holding an icepack to his wrist, to help reduce the swelling.

“I hope you’re proud of yourself Keith. You’re twenty-seven! You can’t go climbing trees drunk anymore sweetheart.” Lance sighed, letting Keith lean into his side a bit. He was in pain after all, a dull pain since this moron was still wasted from drinking a whole bottle of wine, but he was Lance’s moron.

Keith sighed, pressing his face further into Lance’s neck nuzzling it and smiling when he heard Lance giggle a bit. Lance was pretty sensitive in the neck area as Keith had learned earlier during one of their dates. So the only reasonable thing Keith could think to do, was kiss Lance’s neck, leaving little trails along his jawline and collarbone, biting gently at Lance's adams apple, eliciting a soft gasp from his flustered boyfriend.

“Not here Keith! There are other people here..” Lance reminded him, slightly pushing his pouting boyfriend away.

“I don’t give a shit..you’re cute when you’re flustered.” Keith offered like it was a reasonable argument which had Lance opening his mouth for a rebuttal but he slowly closed it, finding he didn’t have one.

“Ok one kiss but only because you’re injured and probably need some love right now.” Lance stated firmly. He pressed his lips gently against Keith’s who threw all common decency out the the door and mashed his lips to Lance’s, as if they only had a few minutes left in the world. Lance’s annoyed hum made Keith slow down some and the kissing became gentler and more sweet to Lance’s pleasure. It was then interrupted by the nurse grunting out Keith’s name, much to Lance’s relief(he was starting to accept Keith’s earlier idea of going to second base) and Keith’s annoyance.

Keith’s wrist was confirmed sprained so it was wrapped up in bandages to heal and due to Keith having alcohol in his system, the doctor only prescribed Keith some pain medicine for later and not then. Instructing Lance to not allow Keith to climb trees anymore, especially with the assistance of wine, Lance embarrassingly thanked the doctor then proceeded to take them back to Keith’s apartment.

Once they arrived, Keith had sobered up more, now tired as he plopped into his bed, not changing out of his clothes or boots. Chuckling, Lance pulled the blanket over him for now while he cleaned up the apartment a bit from their interrupted movie session, putting away the wine as an afterthought where Keith wouldn’t find it.

When he was finished, Lance stretched, feeling the days adventure wear down on him and decided it was bedtime for him as well. Changing into his pajamas from his overnight bag (don’t leave home without one) Lance crawled in next to Keith, after removing his boots and jacket, pulling the blanket over them both. Leaning over his sleepy boyfriend, Lance pecked Keith’s forehead with a light kiss before turning over to get comfy. He felt movement stir behind him, making Lance smile to himself as Keith pressed up against him, wrapping an arm around Lance’s waist and wishing him good night.

                                                                            ___________________________________

 

“Aww dude!”

“Wow Keith didn’t know you were such a tree hugger.”

“How can you drink whiskey without getting tipsy, but lose it at wine buddy?”

“You told me you sprained your wrist from lifting weights!”

Keith glared at Lance who was trying to look innocent through their friends ramblings.

“Paybacks a bitch.” He smiled. Keith merely tugged him closer pressing a light kiss to his temple, ignoring the others cries of PDA and disgust. Keith sighed afterwards, taking a sip of his beer before turning to face Shiro.

“In all fairness, I was lifting weights earlier that day.” Keith stated, Shiro chuckled giving him a sly expression.

“Well for a sprained wrist, better falling out of a tree or lifting weights than the other embarrassing option.” Shiro let his words hang in the air, everyone pondering their meaning till Pidge spat out their cider in shock with realization hitting everyone slowly.

“Shiro!”

“We do not condone this language young man!”

“You’re like 6!”

“Takashi Shirogane ladies and gentlemen and non binary human beings.”

“You’re supposed to be the adult example Shiro, what the hell?” Keith demanded, face bright red. Shiro shrugged as he took another sip.

“What, its only okay if Lance does it?” Shiro pointed out.

“Lance is a sad person Shiro. We expect this crap from him.” Pidge pointed out ignoring Lance’s offended ‘Hey!’ Hunk patted Shiro on the back.

“It’s okay, we’re not angry just disappointed.” He whispered. Shiro sighed before turning to his drink.

“Oh you can all go to hell right now. Damn kids.” Shiro grumbled.

The gang laughed more, sharing stories of previous drunken encounters. It was a positive evening and they got to embarrass Pidge by singing happy birthday, making the whole bar join in despite their protests to hide under the table. The bar even gave them a free shot, which extended to four more free shots from friendly patrons wanting to make their day special. Before they knew it, they had a very drunk Pidge yelling at a TV with another patron over the statistics of a ball game and how stupid the referee was being. Pidge was mostly just yelling about statistics in general.

“Well we better get home. Tonight was fun, Matt have fun dealing with Pidge.” Lance snorted, watching the angry person start to climb up on the bar countertop, despite Hunk and Shiro’s attempts to pull them down. Matt shrugged.

“It’ll be fine. Pidge will calm down soon and then I’ll just take them outside where they can go yell at some plants. Haha, Pidge does not like the outside.” Matt scoffs, remembering his earlier story. Keith smiled as he wrapped an arm around Lance, who did the same with Keith.

“Tell them again happy birthday for us when they’re sober. See ya.”

With goodbyes all around, Lance settled in the drivers seat with Keith in the passengers.

“You just had to tell that story didn’t you.”

Lance glanced up, Keith giving Lance the ‘im-very-angry-at-you-but-i-also-want-to-kiss-you’ look. Lance merely shrugged, knowing his nonchalant behavior would piss Keith off more.

“Like I said, paybacks a bitch.” Lance stated. Keith merely glanced him over before grabbing Lance’s face and kissing it roughly.

“And I know exactly what your punishment is gonna be tonight.” Lance’s face felt hot as he felt a stirring down below at Keith’s rough words and decided to play along, smirking.

“Well if we’re going that route, I’d say its more of a reward than a punishment.” Lance replied, wrapping his arms around Keith’s neck, who began to pepper Lance’s neck with kisses, biting gently at Lance’s collarbone.

“Honestly, any excuse to pull you closer, hearing that story of me drunk made me want to kiss you so hard like I didn’t get to that night.” Keith admitted, loving the way Lance’s eyes practically glowed softly in the dim light from the outside bar sign and streetlamp.

“Well neither of us are drunk now, I’d say nows the perfect time to finish what we didn’t start both those nights.” Lance offered, tugging on Keith’s earlobe with his teeth, Keith gasping softly. 

And with that, Keith couldn’t agree more.

                                                                            ______________________________

                                                                                       *3 years ago*

 "I WANNA BE THE VERY BEST! LIKE NO ONE EVER WAASS!" 

"Pidge get down from there! You're gonna hurt yourself buddy," Hunk fretted. 

"Keep singing Pidgeotto! This song is awesome!" Lance roared as he whooped and sung along with the rest of the crowd.

Hunk sighed watching Pidge singing or rather shouting the chorus, most of the bar patrons joining in and singing along with a few older generations hanging around watching amusedly.

“This can’t end well,” Hunk blanched and raced over to Lance, to stop him from getting up on the countertop with Pidge who was clutching a half empty beer bottle like a microphone, belting the lyrics to the infamous Pokemon theme song. Hunk sighed, rolling up his sleeves getting ready to do damage control.

After he recorded all this of course.


	5. All in Good Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith visits the class. Outdoor fun. Lance is too smitten with his boyfriend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keith visits the class and interacts with the students again!

The air was fresh and the slight breeze of early April felt relaxing, taking away some of the pre-summer heat that was starting to affect the whole town. 

Normally Keith wouldn’t be caught dead outside in such heat, choosing to rather do his workout routine, catch up on needed chores around his house he’d put off, bother Shiro at the station, or sleep.

But today something told Keith when he awoke that morning, he was going to be outside most of the day.

Turns out that something was a certain someone named Lance.

Lance had texted Keith at school, asking if he wanted to visit today, they weren’t learning anything super important for class. Keith had been nervous hanging around the children at first, considering he’s never been around kids, but after fate decided Keith needed to run into Lance again, he’d grown accustomed to being around the little tykes. Keith showed up before lunch again, supplying both his and Lance’s lunches and had been hanging out ever since. He tried not to come over all the time, which was really fucking hard, because he didn’t want to push the visiting hour limits and get Lance in trouble. Lance had merely scoffed, waving away Keith’s concerns, stating most teachers did this, and if that snooty second grade teacher can have her boyfriend stay the whole school day while she taught, then Lance could as well. Keith simply shrugged at the time since to be honest, he didn’t feel like getting into a fight if he pointed out the errors of that thought and also didn’t have much experience to argue about. So he stayed.

It was also his day off where he knew he wouldn’t be called in case of an emergency, unless he was close by, and Keith wanted to spend time with his boyfriend. Even if that also included spending time with twenty-four five year olds making faces at them whenever they spotted them holding hands. And now he was outside with them for their recess, standing in the hot sun and wishing he was somewhere else..like in the shade..with Lance. 

“Keith! Watch me swing higher!”

“No watch me!”

“Look, I’m going the highest!”

Okay and maybe the kids were really cute too, especially when they were all competing for Keith’s attention. But nobody was going to hear him admit that ever.

“I’m looking guys. Don’t worry.” He assured. It was pretty hot, so Keith was wearing his hair up in a ponytail, and some shades covering his eyes since it was pretty bright out too. He did a quick glance to make sure these two small girls, weren’t swinging too high for their sizes, while also keeping track of some of the other kids who started a game of kickball. His gaze brought him to look over at Lance who was sitting in the shade with a few other teachers, who were watching their kids as well. Allura was also there and at first Keith had tensed being around her, thinking he was breaking rules by being there, but she had simply waved, smiling brightly and acted like his presence wasn’t intrusive.

“Keith will you come push me?” A small voice squeaked below him. Keith turned to see Manny smiling up at him brightly and Keith eagerly smiled back.

“Sure.”

Manny led Keith to one of the lower swings, one that he could reach. Manny was pretty short, one of the smallest boys in his class, which Lance waved away saying “He’ll shoot up to six feet like his dad and his uncles in no time,” so Keith wasn't too worried for the kid. 

Scrambling on the swing and gripping it tightly like Keith checked, Keith began pushing him gingerly, not wanting to push him hard and shoving the kid off like some bully.

“Thanks Keith! Normally Uncle Lance pushes me, but he seems busy today.” Manny noted, no hint of remorse whatsoever, he just stated it like a fact, which made Keith chuckle.

“I’m sure he’ll cry about missing his time with you later with me. And it’s Mr. McClain.” Keith reminded him making Manny giggle. Soon the other kids noticed Keith pushing Manny and began voicing their needs and wants of being pushed on the swing.

“Well guys, I don’t think I can push all of you..” Keith admitted, not wanting any of these kids to be sad. He heard running feet and turned to see his boyfriend panting before he proudly stood back up. 

“Never fear, McClain is here!” Lance called, making a few kids gasp in surprise before turning into bundles of giggles. Lance grinned, placing the emergency fanny pack kit and his water bottle next to one of the swings and began pushing one of the other kids before pushing the girl next to her.

“How about Keith and I try to push all of you instead?” He offered, the whole swing set group cheered, drawing the attention of the other kids scattered around the playground. Keith grinned as Lance gave him a wink and the two got busy pushing all eight kids on the swings. There was running back and forth with alot of tripping, but that seemed to make the kids laugh harder at the two ridiculous men trying to push all the kids. Pausing, Keith bent over panting, thinking he was so glad for skipping his workout routine earlier since he was clearly getting a workout doing this. He’d have to tell Shiro about it.

“Looks like you could use some help.” a light, accented voice spoke up, snatching Keith’s attention up to where Allura stood, hands on her hips, giving him a challenging grin. Lance beamed, face sweating as he fell comically to the ground, hand over his eyes, ignoring the giggles of his students.

“Please Miss Allura! We’d be forever in your debt to help us make these gremlins happy!” Lance moaned, a slight grin teasing on his face as his students laughed more while some expressed their mock outrage for being called gremlins. Allura snickered as she pulled her long hair into a bun and kicked off her sandals.

“Okay I got these three covered here, you two get the other five.” She directed heading towards the small little girls from earlier while Lance and Keith continued pushing Manny and the others swinging around him. The system was working pretty good, the children were laughing and talking, having fun with the attention of not only their teacher and the visitor, but also their principal. Then Coran came running out, looking for Allura.

“Oh there you are, Allura you have a meeting with the superintendent in ten minutes! You go, I’ll handle these little tykes!” Coran stretched his fingers, a certain gleam in his eye, making Keith sweat nervously. Allura bid her farewells to the students, with some running up to her and giving her goodbye hugs till she eventually made it out of sight. Coran, having taken over for Allura went into overdrive, pushing all the kids in sight one at a time amazingly! He even took over Keith’s and Lance’s kids, pushing all of them at an incredible speed that couldn’t have been human. Keith stepped back shrugging while Lance grabbed his stuff, obviously tired and headed back to the shade, Keith following him as well until one of the other kids stopped him along the way.

“Keith, can you please play catch with us?” he asked, some of the other little boys and a couple girls giving him puppy dog eyes. Lance was even giving him puppy dog eyes. Crap.

“Sure.” he smiled with the kids cheering. A game of catch began, mostly Keith throwing the ball gently to one of the kids and them catching it. Lance retired under the shade, plopping down exaggeratedly in front of the other two teachers who chuckled down at him.

“You’ve found yourself a nice catch with this fellow, McClain.” One of his coworkers, Barbara, stated. She was pretty nice, a good teacher who was in her mid forties, bleached her hair too much, and wore too much makeup, but treated all the kids like they were her own, with love.

His other coworker, Jamie nodded. “Yeah, hes quite good with kids isn’t he?” She asked. She was in her late twenties, closer to Lance’s age and also generally pretty nice. Lance flashed them both a grin.

“Would you believe he actually has no clue how to be around kids?” Lance admitted, much to their surprise.

“Really? That guy?” Barbara pointed at Keith, who was currently showing a kid how to throw a ball to another kid. Lance snorted at the surprised tone and nodded.

“Yep. He was scared sheep-less when he first walked into my classroom and all the little guys staring at him. Looked like he was about to bolt.”

Jamie hummed knowingly since she recognized Keith from Safety Day.

“You know I think thats what the kids mostly enjoy about him. How honest he is. He doesn’t talk down to them like most adults do, and willingly goes along with what they say or do.” She pointed out. Huh, Lance watched Keith as the words repeated themselves in his head. It made sense, Keith was generally an upfront, brutally honest person, even though sometimes it would bite him back in the ass, mostly Lance’s. But while most adults were put off by his honesty, the kids seemed to think Keith was mostly trustworthy and funny.  

Sitting there watching his boyfriend interact with his students brought a stirring feeling in his chest, like he could see Keith being this way with their kids someday and Lance flinched at the idea, shoving that thought away. They were after all just starting a relationship, now wasn’t the time to be thinking of things so far away in the future…But yet as the kids started playing their own round of catch, Keith headed towards him only to be stopped by a little girl, making him bend down to see what she wanted. Lance watched as Keith immediately nodded to whatever the girl's request was, Lance feeling his heart lurch again as Keith took the girl's offered hand and pulled him towards a small group of them, with a giant jump rope waiting there. Lance hid his bemused smile behind his hand as he watched his muscular, firefighter boyfriend, chant out rhymes while he and another girl spun the jump rope, as three other girls jumped, laughing and rhyming as well.

It was cute and so worth getting a video to send to the groupchat because as much as Lance loves him, he isn’t afraid to embarrass his boyfriend to their friends who will provide alot of teasing commentary. All in good fun of course, Lance smirked sending the video.   


	6. Sleepwalking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith discovers an interesting fact about Lance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a disclaimer, I've heard a different variety of things you're supposed to do and what you're not supposed to do with a sleepwalker so this will definitely not be accurate. Also as someone who has sleepwalked before, its a truly confusing thing especially when waking up with your clothes inside out and backwards.

Keith jerked awake feeling something was wrong. 

The clock read that it was a little after four am which made Keith groan since he had to be up in another two hours for his shift. Keith turned his head to the side, scoping for the figure of his boyfriend but was met with bare sheets instead. Confused, Keith looked around the room noticing Lance was nowhere to be found, the door to their bathroom open and dark, meaning he wasn’t there. Keith, completely awake now, got up from the bed and stepped outside the room to find Lance standing over by the windows just..staring.

“Lance? What are you doing up, its after four.” Keith grumbled, as he walked over to his boyfriend, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Lance was completely zoned out, his eyes glassy looking as he continued to stare out the window. Keith raised his eyebrow unsure what the silent treatment was about and turned to examine the mess of a living room they had left. They had settled down last night choosing to watch some sci-fi action flick Pidge recommended and hadn’t gotten to bed till a little after one in the morning. Keith groaned as he began picking up the blankets and empty pizza box, mildly annoyed that Lance wasn’t helping him. Keith turned to face his boyfriend, sarcastic retort almost slipping out when he noticed Lance had changed positions. He was now settled on the floor behind the couch, the tv remote in his hand and held up to his ear.

Keith watched even more confused and a little alarmed when Lance started speaking Spanish into the remote in a low tone.

Ok this was getting weird. Keith set the blankets and box back on the couch and coffee table as he gently kneeled down next to Lance who still hadn’t noticed his presence. Keith waited till Lance got done talking on the remote before he gently took Lance’s hands, who didn’t react to being touched, and managed to guide him back to the bedroom where he tucked Lance back into bed and sat there waiting for Lance to drift off to sleep again. When Lance’s eyes finally closed and he was breathing lightly, Keith sighed and decided he would ask Lance about this in the morning as he crawled back into bed and curled around Lance’s sleeping form.

                                                                                   _______________________

Keith was dressed for work, drinking out of his ‘worlds okay-est firefighter' mug Lance had gotten him when said object of his current thoughts walked in, dressed casually but smartly for work and his face glowing and shining.

“Good morning most wonderful boyfriend in the world who has hopefully set aside some coffee for me as well, because I am running late!” Lance dutifully pecked Keith on the lips as Keith handed him a travel mug that said ‘worlds okay-est teacher’, a gift from him.

“So are we gonna talk about what happened last night? It was a little weird.” Keith began, he was never good at the art of being tactful, mostly finding it better(in some cases) to just tackle the problem right away and be blunt about it.

Again that only worked in some cases.

Lance crinkled his brow confused until an embarrassed flush creeped on his skin. “Oh uh yeah, I guess we can. Look, I’m not sure exactly why I got a boner during that one part of the movie, but I assure you that I am still learning new things about my body and the whole thing with the aliens-”

“What? Lance no! I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about the other thing, at four am this morning.” Keith said, feeling his face was on fire at Lance’s mention of the boner incident.

Lance just gave Keith a confused look again.

“What other thing? What happened at four am?” He asked clueless. As Keith was about to explain, Lance took a glance at the clock and nearly spat his coffee out in a panic.

“Nevermind Keith! You can fill me in later, I gotta go!” With one last quick peck on his boyfriends lips, and grabbing his lunch, Lance headed out the door in a whirlwind, leaving Keith feeling stunned from Lance’s swift exit. 

                                                                                   ______________________

“I’m telling you Shiro it was the weirdest thing ever and thats coming from me.” Keith added. He was recounting the odd events from last nights episode with Shiro listening intently, a serious frown on his face.

“Sounds to me like sleepwalking honestly.” Shiro offered. Keith frowned unsure.

“But he wasn’t bumping into things, it was like he was completely aware of where he was just..dazed I guess.” Shiro nodded his head.

“Sleepwalking doesn’t mean they’re completely unaware of their environment Keith. Sleepwalkers can move around and talk like they’re awake. There’s even stories of people texting and driving while sleepwalking. You said he wasn’t responding to you when you spoke and touched him, thats a common symptom as well as the glassy, dazed expression and not remembering their episode.” Shirp explained. Keith just sighed, staring at a stain by the small kitchen counter in the break room.

“That driving thing does not make me feel better honestly. We live on the second floor, what if he walks out the balcony while sleepwalking? He’s already a bad driver as it is.” Keith worried, biting his lip. Shiro smiled, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“That’s a very rare chance of that happening. Most people who sleepwalk just do routine things like getting dressed, making a snack, or talking on the phone.”

“Still, what if it happens again and I’m not awake to help him? I mean this is the first time, that I know of, that hes done this, but who's to say it won’t happen again?” Keith grumbled, wishing there was a solution to this issue. Shiro hummed as he thought till an idea popped into his head.

“Why don’t you ask his friends or family if they know anything? They might know what to do.” Shiro asked. Keith nodded his head, knowing there was someone who also knew Lance the most, next to him.

“Yeah I think I’ll do that.”

                                                                                          ____________________________

 

“He spoke in Spanish while trying to talk to the remote like it was a phone?” Hunk asked, sounding like he was in disbelief and mildly amused. Keith shrugged then remembered he was talking on the phone, that Hunk couldn’t see him so he replied instead.

“Yeah, and he didn’t remember any of it later when we were getting ready this morning. Has he done this before?” Keith asked, his earlier conversation with Shiro worrying him a little, especially the idea of Lance taking off driving in the middle of the night, and Keith not knowing.

“Well there was one week back in college when we shared a dorm room he had a weird experience. That was the only time I caught him sleepwalking though, I don’t know if hes done it since.”

“What happened?” Keith asked curious. He was on his second break and hoping he'd have a solution to present Lance with by the time he got home.

“Well it was a few days before we both had our finals for the semester right before holiday break. I think Lance was struggling with a few of his classes and was stressed about going home and being around his family, since at the time he was really insecure about his grades and where he should be in life, that I think the stress got to him and he hardly slept. One night though, I woke up to find him writing and copying chapters fifteen through nineteen which was what the final was going to be on. I didn’t think it was that weird so I went back to sleep, but then I heard weird noises and got up to see him wearing his clothes inside out and backwards and trying to brush his teeth like he was getting ready for the day. And it was only two in the morning Keith!” Hunk explained. Keith wrinkled his forehead trying to see if there was a possible pattern or sign when he heard Hunk mumbling something.

“Sorry what was that?”

“Oh I said the next night when I found him snuggling with a watermelon in the shower was when I told him about everything. He was kinda freaked out but he started sleeping better after the stress of finals wore down and I hadn’t seen or heard anything weird since.” Keith frowned.

“Do you think stress may be the problem?” Keith asked.

“Could be. It’s caused by stress and anxiety as well as sleep deprivation. Has he said anything about being stressed at work?” Keith frowned deeply as he thought about Lance and the eye bags he’d been trying to hide today and brushing off topics around work lately.

“No he hasn’t.” 

                                                                                 __________________________

“Hey honey! I’m feeling pasta tonight, what about you?” Lance greeted Keith, kissing him lightly on the cheek as he turned back to the stove while Keith fidgeted a little unsure how to bring the topic up.

“Yeah pasta sounds good. Hey Lance, remember that thing earlier I was trying to tell you today? The four am thing?” Keith asked nervous. Like he said, avoiding the topic wasn’t what he did best at.

“Um yeah? What happened exactly?” Lance asked curious, noticing his boyfriend was acting weird. Well, weird for Keith anyway.

“Well, you were kind of walking around the apartment speaking Spanish to the TV remote like you were talking to someone..I tried to get your attention but you were pretty out of it so I just took you back to bed. I had a talk with Hunk and Shiro about it-”

“You talked about me? Keith I’m fine, its not like I was doing anything dangerous.” Lance scoffed, rolling his eyes. Keith felt a little anger flare up at being dismissed like that so he marched towards Lance, crossing his arms.

“No but you could’ve! Lance, sleepwalking may not be that big of a deal, but it just worried me seeing you like that ok? Are you feeling okay lately? You’ve been quiet about work which is weird for you.” Keith noted, trying to be gentle about it but Lance just scoffed as he walked away from him instead.

“Keith I’m fine! I just don’t want to talk about work all the time, alright? I don’t have a problem.” Lance insisted stubbornly, plopping on the couch, doing his best pouty expression which normally Keith thought was kind of cute but now was just infuriating.

“Why do you do this? Why are you hiding your problems? Lance, I’m your boyfriend, we’re not supposed to keep secrets from each other! Look, I was just worried and wanted to help but apparently I’m not supposed to so...” Keith dropped it and turned away, heading for the bedroom but stopped hearing Lance’s quiet, “Keith, wait.”

He slowly turned around, a little surprised seeing the raw emotion on Lance’s face and Keith wanted to kick himself for being the one who made that expression appear on Lance’s beautiful face. Immediately, Keith headed to the couch wrapping up his boyfriend in his arms, Lance doing the same as they hugged each other, embracing the others warmth and feeling secure.

Lance sighed, releasing his hold and pulling back slightly while Keith rubbed his arms comfortingly.

“Look you’re right. I should be more open about my..issues instead of hiding them. I just..feel like I shouldn’t dump my problems onto you because you deal with enough stress from work, it wouldn’t be fair if I added on to that.” Lance pointed out. Keith smiled lightly as he leaned forward, pecking Lance’s lips, neck, and cheek with light kisses, nudging his face against Lance’s.

“I’m your boyfriend, you’re supposed to come to me with your problems, I don’t want you to feel like you can’t come talk to me about stressful stuff. I’d love you more if you did, we should just try to be more open with each other. Okay?” Keith asked unsure. Lance pecked him on the nose and smiled.

“Okay.” He agreed.

“So tell me about work. What’s going on lately?” Keith asked. Lance hesitated but began to tell him everything. Apparently the stress of helping the children with their last few weeks of learning was taking its toll on Lance as well as the test prepping the school board is making him do.

“I mean they’re just kindergartners Keith, why the fuck are we testing them so young?” Lance ranted, eyes filling up with tears as he recounted how many of his kids were freaking out, thinking they were going to fail and think they were dumb all because of some stupid test that didn’t even test their actual knowledge for passing the grade, just what they memorized, like robots. Keith had frowned all throughout the explanation, also feeling upset these wonderful kids who accepted him in a heartbeat were beating themselves up at such a young age over a stupid test.

He was also upset seeing his boyfriend upset over this, knowing how much he loved those kids. Lance wasn’t finished however, saying theres apparently a new coworker there now who absolutely hates him because he brings Keith over and has told his class that ‘men shouldn’t be with men’ which Allura was straightening things out with that coworker, thanks to several parent's and coworker's complaints. And because the school education system was awful, there were now rumors of people going to be laid off which Lance was nervous about him getting the boot since he was one of the newer teachers. Keith just hugged him as he listened to Lance go on about the stress of work. When Lance finally calmed down he admittedly felt somewhat better and they eventually they got back on starting dinner. Keith made sure to pamper Lance a little more, since there wasn’t much else he could do regarding the school system. So a night of face masks and a cuddle session in a relaxing bath did the trick. In the end, Lance felt a little better after telling Keith, so at the end of the night they found themselves relaxing on the couch, a bottle of wine and their two cats snuggled against them, Lance had realized this was the best he’d felt in a long time.

                                                                                 __________________________

*One week later*

Keith woke up hearing a banging noise and groaned as he turned to his side. He pawed around the empty space and realized with a start Lance wasn’t in bed.

“Fuck, not again.” Keith groaned as he got up and headed out to the living room but felt his heart drop as he spied Lance fidgeting with the lock on the door.

He was trying to leave the apartment.

“Nope. Not doing this.” Keith shook his head as he headed over to Lance quickly and blocked the door with his body. He tensed up hoping Lance wouldn’t get super violent as some horror stories had described when coming across a sleepwalker. Keith regretted Lance ever finding that damn Buzzfeed article. Thankfully, Lance only struggled a little until he gave up his task of trying to go outside and wandered back over to the couch. Keith joined him, watching Lance’s sleep zoned out look as he gently took his boyfriends hands and led him back to their bedroom. As he was gently positioning Lance onto their bed, Lance jerked, blinking confused while Keith held his hands back.

“Wha..Keith?” Lance asked, sleepily. Keith just shushed him and prodded him to lay down, laying the blankets over him as Lance fell back asleep. Keith kissed his forehead and climbed back in the covers, wrapping his arms around Lance who snuggled in return.               

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So anyone have any interesting sleepwalking stories?


	7. Shovel Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance's family plan for the shovel talk. Keith is terrified. Also Lance's family are huge fans of Gloria Estefan.

“So it’s about time again. For the thing.” Sebastian stated grimly making the others heads pop up from their food. 

Lance and Keith were invited to a family cookout provided by one of Lance’s uncles. With about over sixty people there, a mix of uncles, aunts, cousins and of course Lance’s siblings and his parents. Keith had been there for about three hours and he still hadn’t met everyone. Right now he was currently sitting at one picnic table with Lance and his older siblings and their spouses. They had been eating and chatting a bit until Sebastian made his grim announcement making them pause. 

“Has it been four already?” Vanessa asked, her eyebrows shooting over her huge sunglasses in surprise with Carlos, who was back from being deployed for a short time, continued to tear into his chicken.

“She’s been to five family events so far and they’ve been together about a year.” Lance piped up. Keith glanced around at all of them who were nodding their heads understanding and driving Keith crazy.

“Ok, who are we talking about?” He asked, getting a little tired of being left in the dark. Emilio gave him a surprised look.

“Carmen’s girlfriend, Jazzmine dude. It’s time for the ritual.” He stated simply earning an eye-roll from Keith.

“Wow that explains so much.” He replied deadpan earning a smile and teasing laugh from Emilio.

“The ritual us eldest siblings always do, don’t worry as the in-law you don’t have to do much. They did it with you too Keith, remember?” Lance chuckled at his boyfriend’s exasperated look. At Keith’s growing confusion, Bella, chuckled and raised a hand to place on Keith’s shoulder.

“They’re talking about the Shovel Talk Keith. Like the one they gave you.” She stated sweetly as she leaned into her husband, Sebastian’s arms. Keith thought back to the shovel talk and instantly remembered what they were discussing about.

“Oh.” Was all he said as the others laughed and continued talking while Keith drifted into himself, recalling the day he legitimately thought he was going to be murdered. 

                                                                                      ________________________

 

“So we’re going to the lake,” Keith began as Lance helped his older brothers load the mini-van they were taking.

“Yep!” he stated happily.

“To a house in the middle of nowhere that’s owned by one of your abuela’s friends who she hunts with every other weekend?” Keith asked unsure. Lance nodded excited.

“Yeah it’s gonna be fun!” He cheered, giving Emilio a high five when prompted. Keith raised an eyebrow.

“Sounds like the Most Dangerous Game to me.” Keith muttered. It was a good thing he packed his backup knives. Vanessa slapped him on the back laughing as she came up next to him, a few luggage bags in tow.

“I like this guy. Pessimistic but charming in a weird way.” She nodded her head like she approved earning a confused frown from Keith. Lance sighed as he walked over to Keith, taking his hands and pressing his forehead against Keith’s.

“Hey it’ll be fun! And you’ll get to know my family better. You get along great with them so far.” Lance pointed out smiling brilliantly, it made Keith warm up inside and out. He sighed in response flopping against him like an exhausted dog, earning a breathy chuckle from Lance who tilted back, trying to hold both their weight.

“Alright, I’m sure this will be fun.” He smiled, earning a kiss from his boyfriend.

“Plus we’ll have the very backseat to ourselves so we can cuddle the fuck out of each other the whole way there.” Lance murmured which Keith smiled, obviously okay with this idea and they turned to the side door of the van, ready to get in and park themselves in their seats when they froze seeing everybody already packed and ready.

"You two ready yet? You can cuddle and make out when you get there.” Sebastian teased, earning a blush from both younger men. Sebastian and his wife, Bella were in the drivers seat and passenger seat, which made sense as this was their mini-van after all. Vanessa and Carlos had taken the seats behind them leaving the very backseat to Lance, Keith-and oh no.

“What’s up backseat buddies?” Emilio grinned, his legs casually splayed out before him as he sat in the middle seat. Lance huffed crossing his arms as he gave his older brother a glare.

“Emilio you turd! Move over so we can sit!” He ordered earning a head shake from the man.

“No can do lil bro. I have to sit in the middle seat, my legs are longer than yours and I would get cramped sitting in such a tiny space. You and Keith can fit perfectly on either side. Plus I’m older, I get first dibs.” Emilio patted the two seats on either side of him temptingly which Lance sputtered indignant but Keith sighed as he touched Lance’s elbow not wanting to fight anyone, especially over seats, but Lance refused. 

“You do not! My legs are way longer than yours! You got mom’s shortness!” He argued, thrusting his leg out as evidence with Emilio throwing his out, and nearly whacking Carlos.

“You two settle down, the others have already taken off, at this rate they’ll beat us there in no time. Lance, Keith just sit down, it’s not like you won’t see each other.” Bella instructed, authority clear in her tone, causing all three men to gulp and quietly sit down in their seats. Lance to Emilio’s left and Keith to his right.

“Thank you..plus I’m sure Emilio is doing us all a favor sparing us from your PDA.” Bella teased earning a bright blush from Keith while Lance muttered something about evil in-laws. With everyone seated and packed up, ready to go, they took off for the lake house, a four hour drive.

                                                                                             ________________________

 

It was dumb but Keith in a way kinda missed being next to Lance and would constantly shoot him looks over Emilio’s huge shoulders to make eye contact.

Lance mostly had headphones in his ear as he nodded his head, listening to music. Keith smiled watching him a little until a loud whoop drew his attention. He watched as the others got very excited, Vanessa clapping and dancing in her seat a little as a distinct trumpet sound went off and women’s voice began shooting off lyrics too fast for Keith to keep up. Emilio began shaking Lance to get his attention till Lance turned to him a little miffed and pulled a headphone out.

“It’s conga time Lance!” Emilio laughed as Lance whooped in joy as he recognized the song instantly and yanked his headphones off. Keith grew more confused by the second but slightly awed as Sebastian cranked the music up and the others paused with the music beat before jolting violently in their seats.

Apparently they were all..dancing?

“Come on, shake your body, baby do the conga! I know you can’t control yourself any longer! Feel the rhythm of the music getting stronger, don’t you fight it till you tried it, do that conga beat!” They all chanted as they laughed, Keith staring at all of them in amazement as they belted the lyrics.

“Keith do you remember this, you were probably just a baby though so maybe not?” Vanessa turned in her seat to ask him as her husband Carlos sang along, his voice a surprising tenor, rotating his hips impressively while still sitting.

“Uh, Gloria Estefan?” Keith chuckled nervously. At Vanessa’s nod he relaxed a little, mostly watching his boyfriend whoop and holler as he and Emilio began a duet of sorts, Emilio belting out the lyrics with Lance singing backup.

When the song was over the siblings and in-laws let out one last cheer and a few laughs as Sebastian turned the radio back down.

“So? That was..something.” Keith breathed unsure what to call that. Lance chuckled, leaning around Emilio to speak to Keith.

“Kinda something we all dance to immediately when we hear it. Mama is a huge Gloria Estefan fan, she played her songs so much when we were growing up we’d dance and sing along whenever it came on.” He explained, beaming a little at the memory. Keith smiled as he watched him, thinking his boyfriend grew more adorable each day.

The ride was quiet for a while after that. Vanessa and Bella were having their own discussion with Sebastian putting in his input every once in a while as he drove. Carlos had some headphones in listening to some Metallica from what it sounds like as he drifted off into slumber. Emilio had taken to stretching out, making Keith and Lance very uncomfortable as he stretched his legs, arms, every inch of him as he sprawled out asleep, hands resting against the headrest. Lance had also fallen asleep, his sleep mask and headphones blasting soothing music being Keith’s main clues. He pulled out his own music player, popping the headphones in as he gazed at the scenery, drifting off daydreaming for a while until he felt the van slow to a stop and looked up surprised.

They had pulled into a gas station, Sebastian waving through cars of other tourists and a few locals as he pulled up to a gas pump. The van was alive again as he watched Lance’s siblings chatter amicably again, moving things around, stretching, and putting away headphones.

“Lance will you come with me to get some snacks for everyone?” Bella asked politely which Lance nodded.

“Sure!” Lance scooted past Emilio easily, hopping out of the van with Bella and even Carlos as the three headed into the store. Keith idly flipped through his music choices until his headphones were yanked out of his ears causing him to jerk up confused and meet three pairs of eyes glaring him down into his seat.

Keith sat back there blinking, a part of him wishing he would spontaneously combust instead of letting..whatever this was..happen.

“Um..guys whats going on?” He asked, frowning confused.

“It’s time dude.” Emilio stated as Sebastian turned away to grab something. Keith glanced at Vanessa for help but she held her steady gaze.

“Time for what? Also whos watching the pump?” Keith asked curious until Sebastian turned back around slamming an object in the middle of their circle.

“You knew this was coming Keith.” Vanessa warned as Keith glanced down to look at the mysterious object and recoiled back in confusion and slight fear. There propped up against one of the middle seats, was a plastic little kids shovel that could be used to dig sand at the beach. Keith gulped as he looked back into the serious gazes of each sibling with a drop of sweat beginning to form.

It was time for the shovel talk.


	8. Shovel talk Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of name roasting and threats of Miley Cryus. Plus a surprise at the ending.

Keith looked around, thinking there was maybe a chance to escape the mini-van, but he was trapped in this hellhole of a suburban nightmare with Lance’s older siblings crowded around the space, squeezing him in. 

“Really? We’re doing this here?” Keith asked amazed and a little scared if he were being honest.

“Why not? It’s all about the element of surprise, the perfect time to corner you and ask you about your intentions with our brother.” Vanessa retorted. She gazed at Keith cooly while he fidgeted a little.

“Does Lance know about this?” Keith asked curious, if Lance did, he was surprised because Lance was usually terrible at keeping secrets sometimes.

“He knew it was coming at some point. He’s participated in these before, he knows how they work.” Vanessa waved her hand dismissively. Keith glanced back at the shovel which Emilio was now waving slightly to look threatening, and failing miserably.

“Then what was that talk you two gave me at the beach then?” Keith demanded to Sebastian as Emilio held the shovel near his face, aggravating him. Sebastian shrugged.

“That was just a talk. Lance is our little brother, we’d do anything to protect him. Even if he does irritate the snot out of us sometimes..” Sebastian muttered the last part, something about a ‘smack cam’ and ‘Elmer's glue’.

“Yea, that was just for fun. This right here is the real deal, you feel me Keithy-boy? What kind of name is Keith anyway? You like country Keith Urban?” Emilio teased, obviously riling Keith up.

“Oh yeah? What kind of name is Emilio? What are you, some entertaining member of the brat pack from a bunch of successful and iconic 80s movies…” Keith trailed. That sounded better in his head.

Emilio blinked owlishly at him before sagging in his seat a little.

“Why does everyone reference that guy when it comes to name roasting?” Emilio grumbled as he handed the shovel over to Vanessa and slumped in his seat.

“Anyways…Keith what we’re essentially trying to say is, if you hurt Lance, you gonna get smacked the fuck up-don’t look at me like that, my child isn’t here I can swear all I want.” She threatened, eyes narrowing with Sebastian nodding solemnly and Emilio still grumbling about the Emilio Esteves reference. Keith sighed, sinking into his seat a bit.

“Isn't the dad supposed to do the stereotypical shovel talk thing anyway?” Keith asked confused with the three elders glancing at each other.

“Trust us Keith, Dad will want to speak to you too. That’s not reserved until you get engaged though, so don’t worry about that for a long time..but not too long you feel me?” Vanessa eyed him again letting out a sigh of relief when Keith nodded.

“I think so..you know, I always thought that things like the shovel talk and family dinners, or family vacations were just reserved for family tv sitcoms, people didn’t actually do this in real life but you guys..care alot about each other.” Keith observed out loud much to his brief horror, but settled his anxiety when the others gave him small smiles in response.

“Yea, thats what families do Keith. Not gonna lie we get on each others nerves sometimes, theres arguing, family drama, and somebody always gets punched on New Year's Eve like its a damn tradition or something now, but fuck we love each other. I mean the first shovel talk we ever had, all my younger siblings were sitting Bella down in the living room and giving her the stink eye..which I didn’t find out till three years later after our wedding..but still, families stick up for each other and they also make life hell for each other as well.” Sebastian smiled down at him which Keith oddly felt better, even if the siblings were supposed to be giving him the third degree.

“Wow, thanks.” He nodded. Vanessa patted his arm like she was a middle aged soccer mom as she nodded towards him as well.

“Despite what we say here today Keith, we do really like you. And Lance is absolutely over the moon for you too so we just want to make sure the feeling is mutual.” She stated, Keith nodded.

“It is. From the moment I first saw him back in high school when it was just a silly crush to when I ran into him at the school that day, I was in love with him. Lance has my heart and its his to keep if he wants it.” Keith replied. The three siblings continued to stare at him till Emilio let out a weird, high pitched noise.

“Shit man! That was some romance-the-pants-off level shit! No wonder Lance is so gone for you.” Emilio stated chuckling with Sebastian and Vanessa nodding as well.

“Still, I have to say this Keith, as Lance’s oldest sister, I will come for you if you ever hurt my little brother, even so much as say one mean thing to him, I will find you and murder you, I know where you sleep.” Vanessa threatened using her sharp gaze to pin Keith to his seat. Keith silently nodded, a little unsure about moving an inch or else Vanessa would probably rip his throat out.    

“Umm..ok?” He agreed hesitant which made Sebastian lean forward then, eyeing Keith up and down.

“Seriously bro. We’ll come fuck you up in your sleep if we hear any complaints from Lancey-Lance.” He poked Keith in the chest, earning a glare from the poking victim.

“I’d rather listen to Miley Cyrus live than hurt 'Lancey-Lance' in any way.” Keith rolled his eyes. Seriously, was the talk over, how long did it take for Lance and them to get snacks? And who was watching the pump?

His thoughts were interrupted when Vanessa pulled out her phone and tapped on a blinking icon. Keith’s eyes widened when he heard his own voice repeating what he just said about Miley Cyrus.

“Alright we got the proof Keith. If you hurt Lance in any way, we’re taking you to a Miley Cyrus concert.” Vanessa smiled much to Keith’s disbelief.

“And we’ll even pay for some front row seats too.” Emilio joked, wrapping an arm around Keith as he sighed.

“Fine. Damn, I regret ever wishing having any siblings when I was growing up.” Keith retorted earning a few laughs from the siblings. They dispersed after that, Sebastian going back to the pump and remove it as the tank was now filled up with gas, while Emilio and Vanessa hopped out of the car to take a stretch break. Lance arrived just after that, with some snacks in tow. He happily scooted inside next to Keith to bestow him a quick kiss as he pulled out a few snacks.

“Look, I found those weird dill pickle chips you like that taste like ass!” He brightened considerably more as Keith smiled as he pecked him a quick kiss in response.

“Wow, I insult your taste in chips and you kiss me? Who are you and what have you done with Keith?” Lance joked curling up beside Keith who rested against him as well.

“Nothing, just some bonding time with your siblings. You’re right by the way, they are demons.” Keith whispered earning a confused chuckle from Lance.

“Duh! I’ve been telling you that for months. Anyways, when we get there, I gotta show you all the cool sights down there, theres this really cool cliff that we all sometimes go cliff jumping-

Keith watched as Lance rambled about the exciting spots he had to show Keith. Keith felt himself warm up to this lake house trip a little more now.

“Hey lovebirds! No PDA on this trip!” Emilio cried out in a scandalized tone, earning a round of laughs from the others and matching glares from both Lance and Keith.

On the way back, they settled in next to each other, Emilio allowing them to sit together since in his own words ‘couldn’t stand the ‘sad dog’ looks Keith was giving Lance and vice versa’ . Whatever, they were settled against each other, both enjoying the warmth of the other while they drove towards the lake, eager for what awaited them.

                                                                                                ____________________________

 

Keith grimaced as the memory ended. Lance’s siblings continued cracking jokes and discussing the plan when Lance turned back to Keith and took his hand.

“You still with us dude?” He asked curious eyes searching his. Keith smiled, rubbing his thumb over Lance’s knuckles earning a slight shiver in response.

“Yeah, just thinking is all. So what am I supposed to do for this plan?” He asked turning to the others. Bella was the only one to hear his request and eagerly turned to him to fill him in.

"Well our job is to distract the McClain while their siblings grill the spouse. So we’re going to find some way to distract Carmen while the others talk to Jazzmine. Lance scoffed listening in on the conversation.

“Just take her to Sephora, she won’t suspect a thing...Actually that sounds like fun, I want to be on Team In-laws now!” Lance begged. Vanessa rolled her eyes as she gave her brother an exasperated look.

“You just want to go shopping for moisturizers.” She argued. Lance gave her an affronted look, one hand over his heart.

“That...Is completely true, but seriously if we all go to the mall or something, Carmen will suspect something!” Lance complained, sparking a heated debate about the plan, everyone making some adjustments with Keith sighing as he sat in the middle of all of it.

He wasn’t gonna lie though, being around Lance’s family brought him a new energy he never thought he’d want in his life and with the small box he felt sticking out of his jacket pocket, Keith knew he wanted to be a part of it for as long as Lance wanted to be a part of his.

His grip tightened over the box, feeling nervous about the whole plan and knowing soon, he would have to do it and get it over with. 

The problem remained though, as to how he was going to propose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaanddd we all know how he proposes! jk I haven't put it out yet! I feel like Keith would be into the weird snacks that other people typically hate. 
> 
> So for timeline perspective sake, this event takes place a few days before the epilogue. I haven't written it out but i have it planned so this is like a fun little teaser into whats going to happen.


	9. Monster Sitting

Keith glanced to the side at his boyfriend who was decked out in a huge coat, yet the weather was roughly in the high 70’s. 

“Lance do you really nee-”

“Yes.”

Keith sighed, turning the car off and getting out, followed by his ridiculous boyfriend who looked like he should be in Alaska, ice fishing or something.

“Stop giving me that look Keith! I’m being prepared alright?” Lance argued, his arms, which covered in the puffiest jacket that reminded Keith of the Michelin man tire guy, were by his sides and looked like he couldn't even move them.

“That coat isn’t going to save you from this fyi. She’ll probably think you’re one big giant chew toy and throw you around the place like a rag doll.” Lance grinned and sent Keith a flirty wink.

“Sounds like she knows how to have a good time!”

“Lance, no.” Keith groaned as the two stepped up the front porch, where Keith rang the doorbell. Lance flinched when he heard the telltale bark only to them it sounded like a monster howling.

“We’ve awakened the demon.” Lance's eye widened when they heard a loud bang on the other side of the door. Keith turned to lock his hands with Lance’s.

“She’s just excited.” He stated simply, hoping his tone wouldn't convey how nervous he was. They paused as they heard the sound of footsteps approaching and soon the door was open. A large mass of black fur leaped towards them, or more specifically Lance who yelped as he was taken down by the giant. The giant's owner now appeared, looking like he was trying to mask his laughter, a surprised expression plastered on his face.

“Blackie!” Shiro gasped out earning a snort from Keith.

“Don’t act like this is the first time shes done this, you know as well as I do she greets everyone this way.” Keith smiled when Shiro tossed him a look.

“Yeah but it’s more fun this way. Plus they’ve been sending a new mailman everyday so I need to keep up the cluelessness otherwise I might not get my mail anymore.” Shiro flushed but smiled when Blackie continued her assault on licking Lance all over, the man pinned underneath laughing in joy.

“Hahaha! Sh-Shiro make her stop! My lungs can’t take this anymore!” Lance cried out, squealing when Blackie shoved her wet nose under his chin to sniff there.

“Alright, alright. Blackie!” Shiro called before whistling a certain way and like magic, Blackie backed off Lance and sat posed and still at Shiro’s feet, panting and tail wagging in contentment.

“Good girl.” Shiro cooed, patting her head and handing her a secret treat he apparently kept in his pocket. Blackie merely wagged her tail excessively at the praise, watching in excitement as Keith helped Lance up. Lance breathed a sigh of relief as he unzipped the coat, that was now covered in Blackie’s fur and slobber, revealing a nice button down shirt underneath.

“And you said this was ridiculous to wear! Spared my outfit this time!” Lance beamed proud for his genius idea only to be flicked on the nose by his rude boyfriend.

“Alright before you two duke it out right here on my porch, can I at least give you guys the instructions and Blackie’s things so I can go now?” Shiro asked amused. Both Keith and Lance nodded, feeling like they were children once again and shoved each other gently as they headed inside, Blackie obviously excited about the visitors in her home. Shiro’s house was a small two bedroom house on the outskirts of downtown. It was clean, modest, and housed one of the biggest monsters in this town, his dog Blackie. Blackie, who was a four year old, Tibetan Mastiff weighing about 150 pounds and named Blackie for her dark, midnight black fur.

She was also known for her excitable behavior when meeting new people(thankfully not threatening unlike her ancestors) and tended to jump on them, not realizing her weight can bring a human person down. Thankfully, she was much gentler around kids and babies, she was even gentle around Pidge, often mistaking them for a short child. Pidge was not amused and even more so when Blackie sat down and was revealed to be an inch taller than Pidge who did not enjoy the roasting this brought on. Pidge usually took care of Blackie but this time, they were away on vacation as well, something about family bonding and saving their dork ass of a brother from a cult group, which confused the others but now Shiro had no one to care for his dog. 

Shiro never really left anywhere, only taking vacations and sick days when it was needed and about two weeks ago, the Chief had decided Shiro earned his week of a full vacation, basically ordering him to take time off. Shiro gladly did so, choosing to stay a full week up in the mountains, but that left one problem unattended, Blackie. Keith was a little surprised and unsure when Lance offered for him and Keith to watch over Blackie. 

“I can’t thank you guys enough for this, really.” Shiro thanked as he pulled out the rest of his luggage, hiding safely away from Blackie’s drool and fur. Blackie, now calmed down since their arrival, headed over to her giant bed in the corner of the living room, which Shiro designated her part of the house, and flopped down with a sigh. Lance waved his hand.

“No problem Shiro! I’m sure Blackie will be just as good with us than those stuffy boarding kennels!” Shiro chuckled.

“Well Blackie kinda gives them a little trouble when she’s there for daycare, so I’m sure they appreciate me finding someone else to take care of her.” Shiro explained, giving Blackie a good pat on the head, which she wagged her tail enthusiastically in response. Keith raised an eyebrow.

“What kind of trouble?” He asked uncertain. Blackie was generally a well behaved dog but Keith knew she could be a giant shit if the opportunity presented itself.

"Um..it’s nothing really...Nothing you two can’t handle I’m sure...Anyways, I’m off! I bought another bag of dog food so the two bags should last the whole week. Her bed and toys are right out here. And her leash is in the mudroom.” With a quick wave, Keith and Lance said bye to Shiro who hopped in his truck with his stuff and with one last wave, drove off down the street. Lance turned to Keith afterwards.

“Alright let’s explore!” He announced, taking off with Blackie joining the excitement, right on his heels. Keith sputtered.

“What?”

“C’mon! Who knows what kind of secrets Shiro’s hiding here! He never lets us over here that much. I wonder if he even has porn?” Keith turned bright red as a tomato as he spun around to yell at his boyfriend.

“Why would that be the first thing on your mind?” He asked mortified. Lance shrugged.

“I don’t know. He's a grown ass man living by himself? Just curious mostly. Aren’t you?” Lance asked. Keith just stared back till finally he sighed.

“Yeah let’s go check it out then. Knowing him, I feel like he would still hide his dirty magazines under the mattress.” Keith bit out earning a laugh from Lance as they headed down the hallway towards Shiro’s room.

                                                                                                _______________________

The first few days took some time, figuring things out, like how much to feed Blackie and when to take her out for the bathroom. They also had to stop and at least check in on their cats once a day, just to make sure they were alright, which they were, mostly sleeping through the day every time they came to visit, not even caring that they were covered in dog slobber and fur. As for Blackie, Lance almost had a heart attack one day when Blackie rose on her back legs to peer over the tall fence to look into the neighbors yard when they were barbecuing one day. The neighbors merely laughed and handed her a spare piece of meat, like it was a ritual.

Things went smoothly after that till one day, Lance had to watch Manny for a bit and wound up taking him back to Shiro’s where they were staying. Lance had cautioned Manny about Blackie saying she was excitable, but generally when you tell a six year old about a dog, they’re too busy thinking about getting to see said dog than the potential risks.

Which is why when Lance walked into the house only to see the living room in complete chaos, he nearly shrieked when a soaking wet Blackie bounded down the hallway, heading towards them. Manny shrieked in excitement with Lance screaming in terror and trying to defend his nephew in the best way that he can, when Keith roared from out of nowhere and tackled the beast to the ground.

“Dammit Blackie! Hold still!” Keith argued as he wrenched the towel dangling from Blackie’s mouth, trying to dry her off with it. Blackie merely decided Keith just wanted to play tug of war and started trying to wrestle him for it. Lance watched stunned with an excited Manny peering around him as Blackie managed to tackle Keith and pin him to the ground, sitting on his chest.

Lance giggled down at his soaking boyfriend, who blew a strand of hair from his face agitated while Blackie wagged her tail. Keith sighed, resting his head on the floor in defeat before he glanced up at Lance and waved slightly.

“Hi sweetheart. Hey Manny.” He said before Blackie began licking his face for attention, earning a startled yelp and a few protests, none of which she listened to.

Manny gazed back at Blackie, his eyes big before he pointed and shrieked loud enough it could destroy their eardrums.

“DOOOGGIIEEEE!!” He yelled, making Blackie freeze in her torment of Keith before she eagerly got up and bounded towards Manny. Lance yelped, scrambling to pick up Manny and move him away from the excited dog but wound up getting pounced on instead. Blackie pinned Lance down as she licked his face excitedly before turning and giving Manny a few sloppy licks as well, earning a few giggles from the small boy, encouraging her to keep going. Keith got up, now free and hurried over to his trapped boyfriend, grabbing Blackie by her collar and trying to wrangle her off. Lance groaned as he sat up, watching Manny eagerly pet Blackie who seemed to be coming down from her high and was panting as she sat on Keith’s feet.

“Manny meet Blackie. Blackie, Manny.” Lance snorted, standing up and grimacing at how wet his shirt was now. Keith snorted as he grabbed the towel from earlier and threw it at Lance’s face, smiling at Lance's indignant squawk. 

“Here you dry off, I’ll tell Manny to go take Blackie outside.” Keith offered, as Lance nodded, frowning at his ruined shirt, covered in water, fur, and slobber.

Keith led Manny out the backdoor, telling him to stay in the backyard only and don’t let Blackie get too rough, with Manny grabbing a rope toy and promising Keith while Blackie chased after an old, chewed up tennis ball. Keith left the door open a crack, just in case before he turned back to his boyfriend.

“So how was your day?” Lance asked curious as he took off his ruined shirt and headed to the guest bedroom where they had been staying. Keith sighed following after him, as he also decided to replace his very wet clothes with a t-shirt and sweatpants.

“Oh couldn’t be better. Woke up to Blackie howling like a banshee because I think she misses Shiro and also had to poop, so I took her outside only for her to see a freaking squirrel of all animals and decided to chase after it. So I had to chase after her. I got her back finally, but she had found all the mud puddles in the street and decided she had to go swimming in them. When we got back, she then decided keep away with one of your sweaters was the next best thing to do, so I had to wrestle it away from her. This turned into an angry tug of war and I finally got her dirty ass in the tub for a bath when you guys came home.” Keith grumbled, falling into the bed with a groan which Lance stood there as he put on another shirt.

Chuckling, Lance climbed into bed, laying next to Keith and began running his fingers through Keith’s hair helping him relax a little.

“I’ll help you clean.” Lance offered, earning an appreciative smile from Keith.

The two cleaned the living room after that, but not before enjoying a few smooches beforehand. When the room was slightly less chaotic looking than before, Lance heard a tap on the backdoor window, looking up and let out a gasp. Keith glanced up and groaned at the sight of a now dirty Blackie, wagging her tail with an equally dirty Manny.

“Promise me, we’re not ever going to have kids.” Keith glared at Lance who nodded.

“As long as you promise the same thing.” He stated before sighing and going forward to let the two dirty beasts inside. Keith’s lips twitched as Manny began to excitedly tell them all the mud Blackie got into and how he made a bunch of mud pies as well with Lance grinning and asking questions. Keith once again grabbed Blackie by her collar, guiding her to the bathtub, starting up the water, with Lance calling out to Manny and getting him clean, tossing his dirty clothes in the wash.

After they were both washed and dried, Manny now in one of Lance’s smaller shirts, sat on the couch, a clean and dried Blackie curled up against him like a lap dog while Manny sipped his juice, watchng cartoons while his clothes dried. Lance and Keith were organizing the house again, occasionally glancing over at a content Manny and tuckered out Blackie before catching each others gazes and smiling at one another. Keith took Lance’s hand in his, earning a curious gaze from the other.

“I don’t know. Maybe having kids wouldn’t be so bad.” Keith stated a little hesitant. Lance smiled as he leaned over and pecked Keith on the lips.

“Yeah maybe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I do not have a Mastiff, but I do have a large Pitbull and a smol Yorkie/Pekingese mix who both do not like baths and would rather be rolling outside in the dirty grass like their lives depended on it. 
> 
> And yes they did find Shiro's porn stash. ;)


	10. Meeting the Parents (Again)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith formally meets Lance's parents. Because being sweaty and yelling at Lance's dad doesn't count the first time, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally I can fucking post this chapter, I've been waiting since we met Lance's parents and didn't want to spoil the epilogue.

“Are you even listening to me?”

Lance continued to ignore his boyfriend in favor of scrubbing the weird stain on the countertop with more force than before. He had to get everything ready before THEY came.

“Lance I know you’re ignoring me, tell me what I can do so I can help, seeing this side of you is freaking me out a little.” Keith stood in the doorway to the kitchen, arms crossed as he stared perplexed at Lance’s back.

“Keith, darling, light of my life, I have only one task for you and that is to just stay out of my way while I get everything ready and look pretty doing so. I need everything to look just right before they come over to judge everything we do and eat.” Lance stated as he spritzed the countertop again and wiped it down for the fourth time. Keith huffed frowning as Lance continued cleaning the kitchen..for the third time since yesterday.

“Lance, they’re your parents. I doubt your mom will call up god herself just to rain hellfire down upon you for having one dirty spot on the counter..Your dad might though.” Keith pointed out. Lance stopped scrubbing and silently turned towards Keith, his left eye noticeably twitching making Keith a little nervous at seeing it.

“Keith, my mother is the worst about coming home to an unclean house, after all, she raised eight fucking children under one roof and was strict about everything not being messy. If she comes to our home and sees one thing out of place, she will rain hellfire herself upon me for not taking better care of myself as well as you and a million other things.”

“What do I have to do with this?” Keith asked confused slipping out of the kitchen quietly as Lance continued to talk, distracted by removing any junk food in their kitchen.

“Pffft duh my mom freakin loves you, dude. Any person who I like, my parents immediately take a liking to, they probably love you more than me at this point, after the whole you know, incident with the fire.” Lance coughed feeling awkward bringing that up. Keith glanced back over at Lance noticing his self conscious posture and decided to help Lance’s mood by wrapping his arms tightly around Lance’s middle and pecking the back of his neck with a kiss.

“I’d run back in there for you any day.” Keith murmured making Lance blush.

“Oooo Keith, careful there or else I’m gonna take this further.” Lance's blush fading into a smirk as he spun hisself around so he could face Keith and loop his arms around Keith’s shoulders. Keith kept his arms wrapped around his waist as he smirked back at Lance, which could easily make him swoon alone.

“Well that's kinda the idea, I don’t want your parents to think negatively of me.” Lance snorted.

“My parents loved you the moment you saved me, I can’t tell you how happy they were when I explained to them that you were the guy I’m seeing. ‘Oh mijo is dating the handsome fireman who rescued him from the pit of hell’ Yes she really said that Keith, ‘He’s so handsome Lance! How wonderful!’ You see, even if we weren’t dating they’d be pushing me to pursue you...Or at least my mom would. Dad is..a little slow to warm up.” Lance grinned seeing Keith’s face flushing from embarrassment.

Meeting Lance’s dad was like meeting the wrath of God but much worse. Keith had asked Hunk if Edmundo was always that..intense. Hunk just stared off distantly as if recalling a previous memory and whispered a soft 'yeah'. Pidge did the same thing when he asked them about it. He was starting to suspect a trend here. Lance was shuffling around again, which brought Keith out of his musings as he watched Lance flit around.

“Now I need to get back to hiding the junk food before they get here. Also, not to be forward but I love you.” Lance stated, pressing his lips gently to Keith’s before spinning away to grab the bags of junk food and running all around the house, placing them in hiding spots. Keith just kept to the kitchen where it seemed safe for the time being, if he wound up in Lance’s war path Lance would probably shove him out of the way to find a hiding spot for the fruit roll-ups.

“Where did all these snacks come from to begin with?” Keith asked puzzled. He was never a sweet tooth person and neither was Lance, so why was there a crazy amount of cookies?

“I usually get some for Manny when he's over. Also Hunk is a big time snacker, he's usually bringing his food over and leaving it here…I have a feeling he thinks we don’t eat enough.” Lance realized, placing the last bag of Doritos, something they did buy, high up on a closet shelf where neither of his parents could see.

“Oh no not another mom friend. We already have a mom friend, its Shiro. Although, he is more of a dorky dad than a mom friend.” Keith rambled heading over to Lance now that the path was clear and his boyfriend looked calmer.

“Shiro IS a dorky dad, I never realized that. He’d get along great with my parents.” Lance nodded, as if he was picturing them meeting in his head. Keith frowned.

“Well why don’t you bring Shiro down here as your boyfriend then?” Keith huffed, crossing his arms. Lance smiled crookedly as he wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist, tugging him close.

“Awww Keith, babe, don’t be jealous.”

“I’m not jealous!”

“My parents are gonna love you as much as they already do! At least my mom does…Now go get dressed they’ll be here soon.” Lance patted his back like a proud mother and sent Keith in the direction of their bedroom.

“But, I am dressed?” Keith stated confused, glancing down at his jeans and t-shirt pointedly. Lance put a hand to his heart which was Keith’s first clue that Lance was about to be overdramatic again.

“Oh honey, you don’t wear something that casual when meeting the parents.” Lance informed, taking Keith’s hand and tugging him to their bedroom and opening their shared closet. While Lance rooted through Keith’s clothes trying to find something decent for him to wear, Keith sprawled on the bed sighing at how overly complicated this all was. Why shouldn’t he wear what he normally wears? His parents should know who he is once they meet him, not formal, uncomfortably dressed up Keith who probably makes too much eye contact to be considered normal.

“I already met your parents though, and it certainly wasn’t at my best at the time.” Keith grumbled remembering the stress of racing to the hospital after helping to put out the fire, his regular clothes soaked with sweat and soot since he was wearing them under his bunkers, hair strands spilling out of the messy ponytail he had somehow managed to tie up, only for Lance to still be resting peacefully while Hunk kicked him out to go home and shower. When he came back, he barely remembered meeting some of Lance’s family as Lance had been awake then and he was only focused on checking his boyfriend. Yeah his memory of meeting Lance’s mom wasn’t too good but he was pretty sure aside from hearing her introduce herself, he vaguely knew what she looked like. Lance’s dad however…

When Keith had stepped into the hospital, out of breath and sweaty he had barely managed a thank you when asking for Lance McClain’s room number, speeding to his beloved only to be greeted by Lance’s dad who kept asking Keith questions such as who he was and why he was there and what business he had with Lance. Of course it didn't help that Keith's first words to the man were 'who the hell are you'.

The man had this scary aura that completely threw Keith for a loop making him more tired and irritable. Thankfully Lance saved the day by calling them both into the room when Keith realized the strange, mobster-like man was actually Lance’s dad. He had felt fear strike him that day as he gazed at the man cuddling and hugging Lance who in his words ‘barely escaped the clutches of death’. It also didn’t ease Keith’s nerves when Lance’s dad kept giving Keith hard stare downs the entire visit until he reluctantly left. Keith swore the man didn’t blink once.

After letting Lance fuss over his clothes, wrestling him into a nice pair of pants and button down complete with a tie of all things, Lance considered him okay to meet his parents properly and even pinched Keith’s ass on the way out the bedroom. Keith glared at Lance as said man whistled innocently, rushing around the room making sure everything was perfect while Keith just rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to his forearms to get more comfortable.

“Here.” Keith turned to ask what was happening when a large bed sheet was tossed at his face without warning. Keith yanked it off, giving his boyfriend a glare as Lance pointed outside towards the driveway not caring.

“Go hide your bike under that. If my parents see it, they will have a fit.” Lance instructed as he flitted about the kitchen. Keith glanced to the sheet and back at his boyfriend wondering why before he remembered all the times Lance had told him how his mother didn’t approve of motorcycles. Keith knowing himself, didn’t know how to deal with parents, or people in general, so as he considered arguing with Lance about it, he pictured Edmundo’s stoney, barely blinking expression and Maritza’s normally warm, inviting smile turning into a cold glare which inspired Keith to go do as he was told for once. 

Finally after what felt like forever to Keith, Lance screeched panicking as he spotted a white Lexus roll up in the driveway and nearly ripped the door off the hinges, rushing out to greet his parents. Keith chuckled leaning in the doorframe smiling, as he watched his boyfriend eagerly greet his mom in Spanish, as she opened the car door and got out to pull her son in a bone crushing hug. Lance’s dad finished parking the car and got out as well to join the hug session going on, all three speaking rapid Spanish to each other and becoming one big hug pile. It was a little awkward for Keith who felt like how he did all those years back in high school seeing other families being close and like he was looking through the window, watching a private moment. Keith felt the smile beginning to slip from his face as he remembered all those times he wished he could have that feeling of belonging to a family when he felt a hand wrap around his wrist, pulling him out of his spacing out to see a grinning Lance eagerly pull him towards his parents.

“Keith don’t be shy, come say hi!” Lance happily shouted earning a couple chuckles from his mom who beamed at both Lance and Keith as well, making Keith blush. Lance’s dad merely nodded in acknowledgement which was kind of awkward but at least he wasn’t glaring at him. Keith stood in front of them suddenly nervous, he should have been prepared on what to say considering last time they didn’t get much time to say anything.

He simply decided a handshake was the way to go and stuck his hand out feeling awkward.

“it’s nice to meet you..again.” Keith noted with some hesitation lacing his voice. Keith watched as Lance’s parents gave each other sly smiles before Lance’s mom threw her arms around Keith, pulling the stiff man into her arms and giving him a hug with Lance’s dad softly chuckling.

“Keith! It’s so good to see you! We were both so sad we couldn’t stay longer last time to meet you properly but I’m sure you know out of any of us it wasn’t the best time to be introduced.” Lance’s mom stated, her hand patting Keith’s shoulder in a oddly comforting way that made him feel like he was ten again. Lance’s dad merely watched him closely like he was measuring up Keith and could read every secret he held. While Lance inherited his dark blue eyes and warm, beautiful tan skin from his mom, Lance definitely got his height from his dad who was about the same height as Keith, but a bit taller which was definitely more intimidating.

“Hello again Keith, its good to see you again after all that Lance has talked about you.” He seemed like he was teasing but his hard stare told Keith he was anything but jesting, making Lance chuckle in the background.

“Daaaaad stop messing around! Keith doesn’t need to know how much I talk about him.” Lance pleaded, taking almost all the groceries from his mother and carrying about ten bags in each hand it looked like.

“Wait you talked about me? To your parents?” Keith questioned in a teasing tone which brought chuckles from his mother and a grumbling noise from his dad, making Lance freeze.

“Maybe? Yes? Kinda? Wipe that smirk off your face, it wasn’t all complements.” Lance stuck out his tongue childishly and hurried through the door to get inside. Keith rolled his eyes before turning back to Lance’s parents and offering them what he hoped was a smile and not a grimace.

“Would you like to come inside?”

                                                                       _____________________

 

Lance’s mom, Maritza, had decided that dinner was going to be her treat, hence the groceries they brought, refusing for Lance and Keith to take them out for dinner and treat them. Lance was nervous about the possibility of his mother discovering the junk food hidden throughout the house, recalling several incidents in the past where she would rummage through his cupboards ‘looking for something’ only to find Lance’s stash of Cosmic brownies and then pull on his ear yelling about the low nutritional value of “packaged doughy space cakes”. She was right, but still.

She was already cutting up vegetables, had something boiling on the stove, and several mixing bowls ready to be stirred. Keith had offered to help, just to do something, mostly to get out of sitting in the living room being stared down by Lance’s dad, but both Maritza and Lance had promptly shooed him out saying he would mess up their system.

With a resounding sigh, Keith headed back to the living room where Lance’s dad, Edmundo was sitting on the couch, softly petting Blue while Red was sitting a distance away unsure. Keith wasn’t sure it was possible but Lance’s dad eerily resembled a cartoon villain petting his cat, about to spill his diabolical plan for world domination.

“It’s useless to argue with them when it comes to the kitchen. The best way to handle it is to just stay out of their way, every time I go in there just to grab a beer, Lance’s mama just chases me out! Shoo! she says, you’re messing up my system! I’m not even touching anything but the fridge and the cold beer, how am I messing anything up?” Keith cracks a smile at Edmundo’s exasperated face only to promptly stop at Edmundo’s raised eyebrows.

“Um yeah Lance does that to me too sometimes. He forgets that I know how to cook myself but he always just chases me out of the kitchen the same way. It’s kind of rude.” Keith wrinkled his nose, making Edmundo chuckle. Alright progress so far.

“Ahh yes. Lance was always helpful when it came to cooking in the kitchen. When he was younger, he always begged to help with dinner or baking, but I have a feeling that was mostly just to lick the extra batter from the bowl. He was pretty good and he's starting to catch up to his mama and abuela's skills, which was why it was such a shock he nearly failed the home economics class! How does someone burn something so simple like cupcakes?” Edmundo’s face changed into genuine fondness at his son's antics which Keith smiled remembering the faint memory of a burning smell and Lance’s shocked screeching in the background.

“To be fair, the teacher wasn’t clear in the directions. I had to take the class as well.” Keith clarified earning a look of curiosity from the older man, well Keith supposed it was curiosity that or he had an impressive fart but was trying to intimidate Keith with it.

“What grade did you earn in that class?” He asked suspiciously, which Keith felt a bead of sweat drip down his back and he shivered from its chill. Should he tell him the truth or lie? He doesn’t want Lance’s dad to think of him as a dumbass but at the same time he could probably smell the fear and lying right off him, which would probably anger him, Keith debated. 

“I uh..I got a D.” he murmured, deciding to tell the truth then flinched surprised by Edmundo’s booming laugh, even surprising Blue a bit as she got up, walking across the shaking man’s belly and climbing towards Keith instead.

“We’ll keep that between us, if I tell Maritza about you also failing to bake cupcakes, she’ll never let you poor kids cook for yourselves anymore.” Edmundo flashed Keith a teasing smile watching in amusement as Keith crossed his arms, failing to stop the frown crossing his features.

“The instructions weren’t clear enough.” He grumbled, earning another laugh from the older man. The two continued talking, Edmundo asking about Keith’s job as a firefighter, with Keith answering all his questions politely as he could, which according to Shiro, means he shouldn’t answer with monosyllabic words and actually needed to engage with the person talking to him. So far, he seemed to be doing okay, talking to Lance’s dad about work took his mind off the man's intimidating calloused hands that could possibly choke a man, the war zone that was currently his kitchen, and the delicious smell wafting throughout the small house.

“Dinners ready guys.” Lance announced coming over to plop in Keith’s lap much to his annoyance and surprise. Keith gave his boyfriend a scowl which Lance lightly kissed the tip of his nose in response mouthing ‘I love you’ causing Keith to snicker and stand up sending his boyfriend crashing to the floor with a loud yelp.

Edmundo merely chuckled watching his son with a wistful fondness while Maritza snapped her fingers at Lance, telling him to get off the floor. Lance got up, dusting off his pants and giving Keith a glare who turned his most innocent smile on him mouthing ‘I love you’ and smirking when Lance slyly gave him the finger.

Dinner passed with ease, it wasn’t until Lance nudged Keith with his elbow letting Keith know he was pretty much gorging on the food and making no conversation, which was apparently rude. With an eye roll, Keith cleared his throat and tried looking more civil but it was hard when there was so much delicious goodness sitting in front of him. He’s never eaten like this before, fuck.

He joined simple conversation after that, Lance’s mom also asking about his job and what he did specifically as a firefighter and how he and Lance met again which Lance blushed and retold the story of how Keith was volunteering to help out at Altea’s Safety Day where Lance ran into him and they reconnected then.

“But we didn’t start officially dating till I took him out after he rescued Manny from this big old oak tree by the playground.” Lance finished, taking Keith’s hand in his and smiling at him. Keith flushed, not sure what to do and with Maritza looking at him with such awe, and maybe slight impressiveness on Edmundo’s part, so Keith did the only thing he knew what to do in this situation.

Panic.

“Uh-uh well it was nothing really! I was just doing my job.” Keith explained looking down at his almost empty plate. Edmundo scooped the plate up ignoring Keith’s protests of confusion, smiling as Maritza filled his plate with a heaping seconds, without a word.

“Nonsense! You saved two of our family members, thats a big deal to us and we’ll always be grateful Keith for how you saved my baby from that fire just in time.”Maritza explained, wiping away a small tear and ignoring Lance’s grumbled ‘mom!’ Keith just nodded, sticking another fork full of rice in his mouth when Edmundo slapped another hand on his back, making him nearly choke.

“Mari darling, leave the boy alone, I’m sure we’re just embarrassing them both! What I want to know is who’s hot rod’s out there hiding not too well under a sheet in front of the garage?” He asked, taking a sip of his beer. Lance and Keith both froze before giving each other nervous glances before facing Maritza who sat there expressionless.

“Lance Alejandro McClain, do not tell me, after the many times I’ve warned you not to ever set foot on a motorcycle, that you went and bought such a thing?” Lance shook his head quickly like a little kid being scolded would, sitting stiffly in his chair, Keith’s pants in an iron grip under the table.

“No! Never! I wouldn’t do that to you!” Lance cried clearly getting more and more upset about upsetting his mother. His mom sat there tightlipped, fury etching just behind her steely eyes. Edmundo was merely picking his teeth with a toothpick like something Clint Eastwood would do in some western. How did he pull that off, Keith wondered before remembering the situation and hearing the words exchanged between Lance and his mother get a little more heated. Keith quickly stepped in not wanting to see the outcome of where this conversation was about to go.

“It’s mine, I bought it many years ago and I drive it around to work and such. It’s the only vehicle I have actually.” Keith replied unsure whether he made the situation worse or better. Lance’s mom gave Keith a blank stare, gone was her flashing eyes and angry scolding seconds earlier, she was now a statue of blankness but Keith could see the information processing in her mind.

“Oh…Okay then. Just be careful when riding those, I hear about accidents all the time. Our other son, Emilio, bought a motorcycle, the fool couldn’t figure out how to ride it for weeks! So dangerous! Promise me, you’ll drive a respectable speed Keith, I don’t want anything happening to you.” Maritza said earnestly, her small hand gripping Keith’s in a tight hold which made him feel his heart swell.

He probably shouldn’t tell them all the times he speed raced in the desert for cash after getting kicked out of the Air Force then.

“I promise.” Keith stated firmly, earning a small knowing smile from Maritza and a gruff questioning gaze from Edmundo. They continued to go back to eating, everyone ignoring Lance’s bewildered expression.

“What the heck, Keith owns a motorcycle but I got yelled at instead? Is this a dream? How is this fair?” Lance demanded, giving his mama a challenging glare which she gave him a cool one.

“You’re erratic and irresponsible at times and you’re driving isn’t the best sweetie. I’m sure Keith, who’s driven a huge firetruck before, and saved many lives is more responsible with such a vehicle than you are. But you better not set foot on it.” Maritza warned, her voice tight as she continued eating. Keith gave Lance a small smirk eating his food while Lance pouted back at him. They didn't need to know Lance had ridden on it..several times and once managed to drive it five feet.

The evening continued on peacefully, Lance’s parents catching Lance up on the latest gossip in the family, talking about the annual family beach trip coming up soon as well, which Keith got invited to with happy cheers from Lance. Finally when they left, Maritza gave Keith a huge hug, with Edmundo conveniently turning away before being pulled by Lance into their group hug session making Keith feel cramped but oddly warm and full inside. He had never really wanted a family after his high school years, pretty much giving up on the concept after his dad mysteriously left when he was sixteen but after all these years of being alone and convincing himself he was fine with it, Keith let himself sink into the tight, loving embraces and for once allowed himself to feel he was somewhere he belonged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok that wasn't as spoilery as I thought it would be, I could've posted this sooner..fuck. :) Come shout at me if you have a prompt idea for Smokey the Bear oneshots! You can inbox me here or message me on tumblr: savetheunderwaterunicorns Hope you enjoyed!


	11. Lake Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voltron gang + lake shenanigans = awesome opportunity to write klance oneshot with floaties involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shiro smiled at Keith before pointing up, earning a confused look from Keith until a large black mass of fur soared in the air above him.
> 
> "Fuck."

“Watch out!” Keith only had a second to look up in alarm before a large form crashed into the water next to where he had been happily floating in one of those chair floats with a wine cooler, and a nice alcohol-induced buzz going on. 

“Dammit Shiro! Really?” Keith griped when Shiro resurfaced above the water, shaking his wet hair, the white forelock spraying water everywhere, only agitating Keith further. Shiro smiled at Keith before pointing up, earning a confused look from Keith until a large black mass of fur soared in the air above him.

“Fuck.”

Blackie crashed into the water the same way her owner had, popping above the water panting and eagerly doggy-paddling away. Keith popped up above the water gasping and shaking his head to get rid of the water excess before he glared at Shiro who was smiling too innocently.

“What? She gets excited when theres water.” Shiro explained before he turned to the large beast and began cooing and slightly play wrestling with her as Blackie wagged her tail. Keith found thenow empty wine cooler with a pout before he swam through the water back to the shore where the others were.

The gang had decided to go to the lake for the day, Hunk and Lance knowing a good spot to go where it wasn’t too crowded, had enough shade so no one would burn (cough Pidge cough), and had jet-skis and boats for hourly rentals.

Keith trudged over to their little group resting by the shore where Pidge was resting under some trees in the shade with a fold up TV tray perched in the sand and their laptop sitting on top of it. Keith raised an eyebrow every time he saw it considering a lake was the last place you’d see any kind of technology that wasn’t someone’s cell phone, but not Pidge.

As soon as they had driven up, Pidge had looked around, nodded their head and said; “Adequate,” before setting up camp by the trees with their laptop, a portable charging station they fashioned themselves, and three bluetooth speakers.

“For perfect dance party purposes as requested from Lance,” They had said, rolling their eyes.

Keith glanced over at his boyfriend, out in the sun laying on his back on a pizza shaped float, as the light sounds of Spanish music drifted through the speakers by his head, lulling him to sleep.

Keith reached into the cooler for a beer which was parked beside Hunk, who was hard at work prepping burgers and the rest of the food for later, with an unhelpful Coran attempting to give him tips and advice. Hunk was trying very hard not to lose it.

Wading into the water was Allura, Lance’s boss who Keith hadn’t been sure of hanging out with at first, as well as Coran. After a couple of casual meet-ups it was like they were part of the family. Luckily the others thought so too, and would frequently invite Allura and Coran to some events when they were able to make it. Shiro was probably a little grateful to have another voice of reason for their group, saying the others were too much like children for him to handle by himself. 

Keith had scoffed and pointed out noone was going to listen to a grown firefighter, who once attempted to fit into a children’s merry go round at the mall, blowing in a small kazoo for shits and giggles after drinking too much wine at the Heros of the Year Sponsored Charity Banquet.

That had been one crazy charity banquet.

Snapping his attention back to his boyfriend, limbs splayed out in the sun, Keith used the opportunity to sneak a peak and ogle his boyfriend a bit. Lance wasn’t paying any attention so he couldn’t tease Keith and say something stupid like, ‘Like what you see babe?’ and throw in a couple finger guns till Keith would smack him with a beach ball. So thankfully, he ogled in peace, his eyes roaming over every contour of Lance’s body, from the broad shoulders to the narrow hips interrupted by the damn flamingo printed swimming trunks of his. Okay Keith calm down, he told himself. Just use your imagination, just like back when you were fourteen.

Keith’s gaze continued to bore holes as he watched Lance’s chest rise and fall from sleeping, his eyes roamed over the long, tan legs that had been wrapped around his waist last night, both of them grinding into each other, Lance’s moans like music to his ears when Keith would rub his length-

“HEY!” Keith shouted as a force collided with his head, knocking the sunglasses from his face as he rubbed the back of his head. Lifting his head to find the offender, his gaze traveled from a too innocent whistling Hunk to Coran happily playing with Blackie who had just tackled the older man into the water, and Allura and Shiro happily chatting about a subject. The only person he hadn’t seen yet was...

With a suspicious glare, Keith turned towards the small gremlin who had the nerve to duck behind the computer just as Keith made eye contact. Sighing he picked up his sunglasses from the sand and the beach ball that had been the offending object hurled at his head. He turned to face Pidge with a raised eyebrow until Pidge finally glanced at him and scoffed.

“Look this isn’t Europe, we’re not on a nude beach. Keep that eye sex shit in your trunks and the bedroom.” Pidge stated, typing away ignoring Keith’s indignant squawk.

“Wha! But! I wasn't-”

“Keith. What do I look like? A child-”

“You’re short enough to be mistaken for one, yes.”

“...I’m going to let that slide for now. What I’m saying is, you don’t have to whip it out to let me know you’re in the mood for some Cuban at the moment.” Keith didn’t think it could be more possible to blush but he was wrong apparently. His face felt on fire, as if he was sunburned.

Yea he was definitely sunburned, he wasn’t blushing, no way at all.

“Pidge gross! You’re like twelve! Don’t say things like that.” Keith complained. Pidge was about to retort when they heard a low groan and startled seeing the person of their conversation roll over and lift his sunglasses to give them both an unimpressed look.

“Lay off Pidgeotto, let my boyfriend ogle my good looks, thats why we’re dating after all.” Lance whined, shooting a red faced Keith a wink as his annoyed expression eased into a smirk. Keith threw the ball towards Lance, smacking his boyfriend in the face, earning a startled yelp as he fell flat in the sand on his face. Keith’s lips tugged into a smile as Lance raised his head and glared daggers at Keith, sand all over his face.

“Oops.” Keith chuckled as Pidge laughed and began taking pictures with an outraged Lance wiping sand off and eventually chasing the gremlin around to get the phone to delete the photo. Keith sprawled lazily on his and Lance’s beach towels, watching the two of them as they eventually made their way over to Hunk and dragged him into their little spat. Hunk stood there unamused until he popped a chip in each of their mouths and quoted the Snickers motto, “You’re not you when you’re hungry.”

They both settled down after that.

Lance made his way back to Keith, wiping more sand off his features and grumbling about taking longer on his skincare routine later that night. He plopped down practically in Keith’s lap as he groaned while Keith began helping him wipe any small traces of sand away.

“Stop grumbling you big baby. Your skin is fine, in fact its been..glowing since we’ve been out here. You’re as beautiful and perfect as always.” Keith murmured smiling a little as Lance turned to beam at him.

“You big sap...I love you.” Lance breathed before melting his lips against Keith’s. The air feeling like it should be salty and smelling slightly fishy but as it was a man made lake, the air felt clean, the cool breeze ruffling their hair and the leaves as they wrapped their arms around each other. Keith moaned pleasantly as he tasted Lance’s salty mouth, a lingering taste of potato chip surprisingly not unpleasant as it sounds with his hands poised on Lance’s shoulders, which he had been admiring in the sun but now couldn’t help but grip tightly as he rubbed the sand off his boyfriend, and giving Lance's mouth more attention. Lance groaned as he moved his lips to Keith’s jaw and soon moving to tug on his boyfriend's earlobe, eliciting a low growl from Keith.

“Lance..I ah! I love you too.” Keith breathed as Lance began to move his attention to Keith’s collarbone. The two were interrupted however when a beach ball smacked into the both of them, sending them yelling and back into the sand. The two sat up, shaking the sand from their hair as they glanced up to see the rest of the others by the picnic table, casually eating Hunk’s finished burgers and chips, watching them as if they were watching TV.

“Foods ready.” Hunk stated simply, holding up a perfect burger as evidence much to both the blushing men's embarrassment.

                                                                                                  _______________________

“Haha! Faster Keith! We’re almost to the finish line! Hunk and Pidge are way back there now!” Lance yelled over the roar of the jet-ski engine. The two men were whooping and hollering as Keith steered them faster, taking a rather sharp curve that made Lance scream in delight as he clutched tighter to Keith’s frame. Keith had won the coin toss and got to drive their jet-ski Allura had rented for them, in fact she had rented three jet-skis, and a speedboat for the occasion. The others of course had protested until Coran waved away their worries stating happily, “Don’t worry! Allura is loaded! She’s got quite a hefty pound in her bank accounts right now!”

“Coran!” 

Leave it to Lance to propose the idea of having a race, even declaring they make up team names. Hunk and Pidge gladly pairing up and calling themselves ‘The Engineers’ earning an obnoxiously loud, ‘Neerrd!’ from Lance. Lance had insisted he and Keith’s team be called Wildcats for some odd reason, with Keith not really understanding where the sudden interest in the animal came from. Lance, Pidge, and Hunk had just snickered at his cluelessness and giggled when he questioned them about it.

“Oh Keith. I still have yet to show you High School Musical. The god of all musicals, clearly.” Lance awed as he wrapped a hand around his beloved's waist, earning a raised eyebrow in response.

“Is this one of those weird things you always joke about with your siblings? You always scream some chant-”

“WHAT TEAM ARE WE?” Lance screamed, earning a loud, “WILDCATS!” From not only Hunk and Pidge, but Coran as well, what the hell Coran? 

“How do you all know this?” Keith had demanded frowning when the others burst into laughter.

Keith smiled at the fond memory as he navigated the race course easily. He could hear the excited shouting of the others despite Lance’s eager whooping. Keith watched as he saw Shiro expertly drive the speed boat around, Blackie on board and amazingly embracing the wind as it ruffled her fur back and made her look like she was one of those google stock image photos. The best part was Coran who was way behind Shiro, gripping onto the giant float trailing behind the boat as he was decked out in a life jacket almost double the size of his frame, a bucket hat perched on his head, tied tightly to keep from flying off, and shades. He also had on water wings meant for kids from what it looked like and he was shouting into the megaphone he was gripping, about who was in the lead.

“It looks like Squad Dad has pulled into the lead! The Engineers are trailing far behind, due to number 2’s squeamish yelling and number 5’s erratic driving. Team Klance is still going strong and trying to out maneuver Squad Dad it seems with Keith pulling that incredibly sharp turn just then! Oh! But a new challenger approaches! It seems Space Princess has caught up to the two with the speed of light on her side! She’s nose to nose with Klance and-OH QUIZNACK!”

Coran flipped out of the tube, thankfully the life jacket sparing him from sinking too far in the water. Shiro glanced back at Coran, pausing just slightly in concern, allowing Allura and Keith to pull their jet-skis past him and placing themselves in the lead.

“Klance? That’s not our team name?” Lance questioned, slightly disappointed Wildcats hadn’t stuck with Keith rolling his eyes.

“What even is Klance anyways? Sounds like some kind of drink.” Keith yelled. Allura glided up next to them then, offering them a smirk, earning a surprised gaze from the two of them.

“It’s your names mashed together. Like a fandom ship name. Honestly how have you two not noticed? We all talk about it all the time. It’s how we refer to you two.” Allura stated happily, earning a shocked expression from the two which melted into a blush. With the two lovers distracted, Allura pulled ahead of them, finishing the race just in time, Lance letting out a loud “SHE TRICKED US!” Keith and Lance pulled in behind Allura, Lance mostly pouting and declaring Allura a cheater, with Shiro slowly pulling in, an empty float behind him and Pidge steering themselves along with Hunk and a completely drenched Coran in at last. With everyone re-grouped, Pidge let out a suffering sigh as they threw Hunk an evil look.

“Next time, I’m geting a different partner. Hunk is too squeamish for this.” Pidge decded with Hunk nervously fidgeting behind her.

“I didn’t expect it to be that fast, honestly. I call a ride on the pool float next.” Hunk declared. He hopped off the jet-ski, swimming over to Shiro’s boat and flopping on the boat with Blackie eagerly greeting him.

“I can’t believe you guys have been calling us Klance the whole time? Wait, is that what my family has been referencing every time they say klance?” Lance asked a bit pale which Hunk nodded.

“Yep! I have a groupchat with a few of your aunts where we swap recipes and such, and I fill them in on details of Klance here and there. I guess it spread.” Hunk stated, not noticing the matching glares thrown his way.

“Hunk that is an invasion of privacy!” Keith yelled right as Lance yelled, “How are you friends with all my family members?!” Shiro waved his hands placatingly.

“Okay lets calm down guys we’re all adults here...Now who wants to see me back flip off that jet-ski?” Shiro asked, earning a resounding whoops and cheers from the others.

                                                                                                          ________________________

Keith sighed as he ran his fingers through Lance’s hair. The two of them were curled up against each other on one of those giant swan floats Allura owned. It was around five in the afternoon and the sun was starting to fade away, not having set yet leaving the sky a cerulean blue with a dark orange of the sun shining down on them.

Pidge was back on their laptop by the trees a content smile on their face, although their movements were getting sluggish, probably from too much excitement of the day. Hunk, Coran and Allura were all relaxing in little floats that sat like chairs, drinking the rest of the beers, making light conversation as Shiro played with Blackie not too far away, their own version of wrestling in the shallow water, although it looked like Blackie was winning.

That left the two of them for their own privacy, or as private they were going to get if Keith learned anything earlier. Lance looked to be drifting off into sleep again, the remnants of the sun making his face have an ethereal glow to it that made Keith’s smile grow soft as he gazed at his boyfriend. Their arms were wrapped around each other, basking in whats left of the warm glow before they all had to pack up and leave soon. Keith would probably end up driving as he was used to long night shifts and being awake while Lance would probably sleep a bit in the car. They had a pretty long day, although it was relaxing to watch everyone have fun, especially Shiro’s double flip on the jet-ski earlier, certainly none of them were expecting that.

Keith sighed as he turned his head to breathe in the smell of coconut shampoo Lance used, that made Keith want to pepper kisses all over his half naked body just to taste it. So he did.

Well actually, he just kissed Lance’s temple, not wanting to disturb his boyfriend’s light slumber. He’d let him sleep a bit longer until they had to pack up. There would be plenty of time after for such pleasantries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeahhh my pit loovess swimming. My yorkie does not. :)) Bath time is a fun time in my household. 
> 
> Hope that was a fun read! Also the return of Blackie! I have another idea for a lake oneshot, this time involving Lance's family. Be prepared to meet more of Lance's siblings!


	12. Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is in need of Keith's help only for Keith to realize he can't help either. Also they apparently play dream daddy.

“Aaaaugghghghghg!!!”

Keith pounced into position, his husband’s cries echoing throughout their small home. He took off towards the bedroom, forgetting all about his knives and cleaning tools that he abandoned by the floor of the couch.

“Lance?!” Keith called, hurrying into the bedroom only to see his husband nowhere in sight.

“Lance?” Keith tried again, confused until he heard a sniffle and turned his head in time to see Lance cowering against the wall beside their bed, almost as if he were hiding behind it.

“Keith?” Lance hiccuped, wiping his eyes in the process which spurred Keith into action. His husband was on the floor crying and he’ll make anyone guilty for this pay!

“Lance! Baby, what’s wrong? What happened?” Keith asked, curling around his husband, hugging him to his chest and leaving soothing pats along his back.

“Keith, its too scary! I can’t stand it!” Lance all but wailed, drawing a confused noise out of Keith.

“What’s scary?” He asked and a little impatient because if there was a threat in their home, he was losing valuable time sitting here than finding it. Damn, he shouldn’t have left his knives back in the living room! 

With a shaky finger, Lance pointed towards the opposite wall in fear.

“It’s too big I can’t handle it this time...Keith you have to kill the spider.”

And just like that, all of Keith’s sensible worries washed away and was replaced with irritation. He went from gentle, supportive husband to emotionless asshole as he moved away from Lance.

Keith groaned, wiping his hands over his face.

“Seriously?” He gave his husband a pointed glare earning a shocked, affronted glare back from Lance.

“Yes I’m serious! You know I do not like spiders! And this one is huge!”Lance cried out, pointing towards the opposite wall again.

“The dislike is an understatement in this case.” Keith muttered, crossing his arms as Lance eyed the wall and him back and forth.

“Look, you can make fun of me later, are you going to go kill it now or what?”

“Ugh fine. You know, of all the fucking cliche relationship tropes, and you want me to kil-HOLY BIGFOOT TESTES THATS FUCKING HUGE!” Keith yelled, cowering back beside his husband who wrapped both arms securely around him.

“I fucking told you!” Keith stared at the huge monster casually resting on the wall like it owned the place. Shit it probably did considering the two owners of said house were cowering in fear of it. The spider will probably go tell all of his buddies now and Lance would never feel safe here again. They’d have to pack up and move. or worse, burn the place down.

“Fuck spiders and fuck whoever resides up there in the universe and decided that they should exist.” Lance moaned, ducking his head in Keith’s collarbone as he wrapped his arms around Lance.

“How did it get so big like that?” Keith questioned in a horrified whisper. The thing probably knew they were talking about it, so they had to keep quiet.

“Keith are we just going to live in this corner from now on?” Lance asked, completely serious which Keith nodded.

“The door is right beside the eight legged fucker so we’re stuck here unless it leaves first.”

“Even if it leaves where would it go? I-I could never go back out there if it was hiding somewhere else in the house!” Lance gripped Keith more tightly, his words painting an image of Lance innocently going about his day and the spider, now a ten foot tall monster, pouncing on him. Lance shuddered at the image, Keith once again patting his back in a soothing manner.

“No fucking way am I gonna let this thing ruin our lives. I’m calling Shiro.” Keith decided, earning a small cheer from Lance. Keith carefully, not wanting to earn the beast’s attention on them, got up to swipe Lance’s phone off the nightstand and froze as he came into contact with Shiro’s number.

“Uh Lance?”

“Yes Keith?”

“Why is Shiro’s contact picture an image of Craig from the Dream Daddy game?” Keith asked frowning as he turned to show his husband the photo.

Lance blushed bright red as he tried to come up with an answer while Keith just messed around his phone.

“Well they both look eerily similar! The haircut, the muscles..the positive attitude, they’re both absolute ‘bros’. Tell me you see it!”

“I’m gonna ignore how long you paused at the mention of Shiro’s muscles but I am gonna argue you’re wasting your time on Craig. It’s Robert who you should be romancing.” Keith criticized, dialing up Shiro’s number as Lance gaped.

“No way! Of course, you’d be into Robert, you’re both crazy cryptid conspiracists who think pineapple should be on pizza!”

“Shush I’m on the phone! Oh hey Shiro! No I wasn’t shushing you, it was directed at Lance. What? No we’re not having one of our old couple spats!”

“Not unless Dream Daddy gets brought up again.” Lance muttered, earning a sharp elbow to the side.

“Listen, we’re in trouble and need you to come help us out. The door’s unlocked, just please get here soon, we really need it, thanks!” Keith hung up and set the phone between them. It was quiet briefly for a few seconds until Lance spoke.

“You’re not gonna tell Shiro about the Craig picture are you?”

“I’m totally gonna tell him about the Craig picture.”

“Fuck! Keith!”

                                                                                                              ________________

 

The two waited, taking shifts of keeping watch on the behemoth of a spider.

“Maybe..it’s related to Bigfoot..that’s how it got to be so big.” Keith breathed amazed as Lance snorted.

“Keith, I worry for you sometimes.”

“What?”

“Nothing sweetie, Love you.” Lance gave him a quick peck on the cheek, Keith grumbling a bit with his cheeks now blooming. The two continued to stare at the spider, which had crawled just a bit since their phone call with Shiro, shifting just slightly but scaring the hell out of both of them. Lance groaned, his head collapsing in his hands.

“I wish Hunk was here, he always usually took the spider outside every time.” Keith groaned in response.

“Normal spiders I can handle, not ones related to Bigfoot.” Lance patted his arm, the two wallowing in their trapped misery until a loud knock echoed through their quiet house.

“Shiro!”

“It’s unlocked!”

There was the sound of the front door opening and heavy footsteps walking around.

“Keith? Lance?”

“We’re in the bedroom!”

“Hurry, we don’t have much longer!”

“Lance, oh my god.” Keith groaned at his melodramatic husband as Shiro finally approached the doorway, giving the two a confused glance.

“Guys what’s going on?” Without a word, the two of them pointed towards the spider with Shiro turning and inspecting the monster.

He gave a sigh and faced the two idiots, raising an eyebrow.

“Really?” He asked unamused while Keith sputtered trying to come up with a response.

“It’s really fucking huge ok!?”

“Shiro, we’ve been here for almost thirty minutes, just kill it already!” Lance whined, turning his face into Keith’s shoulder so he wouldn’t see. Shiro narrowed his eyes at the monster, toeing off one of his heavy boots that Keith was glad he wore today and carefully held it out strategically, planning for the best way to strike down. 

Keith watched in anticipation as he soothed his husband, fear gripping his heart when Shiro simply slammed his boot heel on top of the spider, giving it a good grind, most likely smearing spider guts on the wall in the process. Lance yelped at the loud noise but hugged Keith tighter to his frame, Keith patting him everywhere, clutching him tighter as he sighed in relief.

“Thanks Shiro.” Keith breathed, Lance finally popping his head up and seeing the spider remains on the wall as Shiro put his shoe back on.

“He did it…Keith, we’re free! We don’t have to try to escape and burn the house down after all!” Lance cheered happily, hugging Keith to his chest as Keith questioned that last part.

Shiro watched the two, rolling his eyes as he headed up to leave. He had been in the middle of a cooking show, about preparing a simple meal when Keith called him, thinking the two were in trouble only to find..this.

Thankfully, it was done and dealt with. He could go finish that cooking show, maybe try again with his cooking tonight. With a wave of his hand, Shiro left the room calling out, “I’ll send you the bill later,” and walked out.

Keith snorted, noting he’d have to make it up to Shiro somehow, Lance would probably be more than happy to make him cookies or something, when he was distracted by a slight pressure on his neck. Glancing down, Keith made eye contact with Lance who gazed at Keith with heavy lidded eyes as he began playing with the hem of Keith’s shirt.

“All that adrenaline kinda put me in the mood.” Lance stated, his hands now encircling Keith’s waist as his husband snorted, his arms looping around Lance’s neck.

“You get turned on by the weirdest things.” Keith informed him, earning a giggle and a kiss from Lance before the two quickly took to the bed, immediately sharing more kisses and tender embraces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, after the thrill and terror is over Lance is ready to do the do. Keith of course does not mind. Also they made it a competition to see who could romance all the daddies first. Lance's favorite is Craig but he may have a soft spot for Robert tho, since he reminds him of his rugged cryptid loving husband. 
> 
> Also, season 3 is here folks! I absolutely loved it!
> 
> EDIT: I fixed some spelling errors, sorry about that I've een writing the past two days ya'll. And marathoning season 3, I need jesus..or some Shiro.


	13. How I Met Your Heathen of a Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Keith share the story of how they officially met to a PTA mom. It involves a KitKat and Keith's heathen eating ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry its been a while, I've got plenty of oneshots cooking up though so don't worry this fic isn't dead, not as long as the ideas keep coming. This fic was inspired by trasshess comic on tumblr, as well as some of the responses the comic received! I'm sure most of you have seen it, if not here's a link and go take a peek!
> 
> http://trasshess.tumblr.com/post/163740384720/trasshess-keith-i-love-you-guys-so-much
> 
>  Also italicized parts are meant to indicate its a past memory, normal typing is present! Hope that makes sense! Enjoy!

“So how did you two meet?” 

Keith and Lance shared equal looks of amusement and embarrassment before turning back to the girl, Karen they think her name was, or it could be Carol..or Susan, or honestly some other PTA mom sounding name.

“Well the funny thing is-” Lance began.

“We hated each other.” Keith stated earning a look of betrayal from his husband.

“Keith! It’s true though, we couldn’t stand each other in high school.” Lance nodded, not missing the look of shock and confusion planting itself on Karen-Carol-Susan’s face.

“Oh my gosh, what happened then? I can’t exactly see the cutest couple like you two fighting all the time.” She chuckled. Lance wiggled his eyebrows in amusement before he casually leaned against Keith, which usually foretold he was about to tell a story.

“Well madam, today’s your lucky day! You are going to hear the greatest story ever told!”

“You copied that from somewhere-”

“Keith! Please, the lady wants to hear a story, okay? As I was saying, it’s a tale of rivalry, tragedy, and romance!”

“You didn’t like me till wayyy after high school Lance.”

“Keith! I just, I’m trying..can’t you just-okay? Okay anyways, it all started back in high school..”

                                                                                       _________________

_Lance grumbled to himself as he briskly walked through the halls to get to his class. His mind should have been on Biology, but lately his thoughts were on this boy in his class._

_Of course not that way, Lance was pretty straight, at least he thought so. ‘Straight as a bendable ruler maybe’ Pidge’s voice snickering in his thoughts, making him scowl and hide more in his swim team hoodie._

_The source of his current frustration was one they call, Keith Kogane. The freakin’ mullet haired cryptid weirdo was obnoxiously good at EVERYTHING. It didn’t help that the guy had a ‘bad boy’ image and all the ladies at school were swooning over his greasy hair and mean scowl…_

“Okay wait, hold up? Greasy hair? Mean scowl? LADIES swooning over him? Really Lance?” Keith spoke up, barely holding back his snickering. Lance glanced back at his husband, using his fingers to flick him on the side of his head.

“I’m telling it how I saw it from my perspective okay? I didn’t know you were gay back then!” And with that, the snickering stopped although Keith still had a grin on his face while Lance narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“So anyways, this jerk right here..”

 _Lance hurried into the room, plopping down in his seat loudly, earning a few glares from some of the other students who were studying quietly. ‘Nerds’, Lance scoffed, even though one of them was his good friend Pidge, currently smashing keys on their laptop like a madman._ _The person next to Pidge caught Lance’s attention and his entire posture stiffened in realization._

_Keith Kogane. He was currently resting his head on one hand, staring off into space as if he was bored. What a jerk._

_Lance stuck his tongue out, despite the fact Keith obviously wasn’t paying attention to him, right as the teacher came walking in, muttering hello and starting class._

_“Today we’ll be pairing up and before anybody gets too excited, I’ll be doing the pairing up. We don’t want another McClain-Holt disaster in this class , again now do we?” The teacher eyed both Pidge and Lance, Lance smiling innocently while Pidge just rolled their eyes. The teacher sighed before starting to talk about the project. Lance tuned him out, choosing to focus on staring at Keith who was listening to the teacher but also playing with something in his jacket. What was he doing? Was that..a knife? Lance swallowed, turning away as he thought about Keith Kogane, casually sitting in class, looking cool and calm with a sharp knife, just idly sharpening something and why did he get hot and excited about that?!_

_“McClain!”_

_“Yes sir?!” Lance shot up, attention back on the teacher immediately who was glaring at him. Shit, was he talking out loud again?_

_A few students giggled while the teacher sighed for like the millionth time._

_“Glad we have your attention again and not on your fellow classmate Kogane.”The snickering grew as Lance’s face flushed in embarrassment. He quickly side eyed Keith to see if he was paying attention and..was he doodling Bigfoot?_

_“Since you’re so interested in Kogane, you and him can be partners in this project.” The teacher decided as Lance sagged in horror while the teacher listed off the other pairings. When he was finished he let the class pair off with their respective partners and Lance grumbled as he finally gathered his stuff to go sit next to Keith._

_Keith ‘doodling cryptids’ Kogane wasn’t even paying attention to Lance until he plopped in the desk right in front of his and cleared his throat loudly to get the other boy's attention. Keith scowled, before looking up and his eyes were as wide as saucers._

_“H-hi.” He mumbled. Lance raised an eyebrow, not sure what was going on with Keith._

_“Hey. So are we doing this or what?” Lance asked grumpily as he took his stuff out, not missing the big question marks and little doodles of Bigfoot and some other creatures Lance didn’t want to know about. Although he did see a doodle of an alien in the corner of his paper, so maybe he wasn’t too bad if he liked space._

_“Y-yeah. Yes. We are. Umm what are we doing exactly?” Keith asked confused earning a look of offense from Lance._

_“Were you seriously not paying attention to what the teacher said the whole time?” Lance asked, his voice raising a little. ‘Jesus Keith get it together,’ Lance thought, however that also meant mullet head here missed the teachers spiel about Lance watching Keith so maybe it was also a blessing._

_“I know we’re doing a project of some kind. And that you’re my partner which by the way who are you?” Keith asked unsure which made Lance freeze. This jerk..who they’ve had multiple classes together since freshmen year..didn’t know who Lance was?!_

“Okay, let me explain.” Keith began, not liking how Lance was painting him to be the aloof, clueless asshole. It was kinda true but PTA mom here didn’t need to know that.

“All I remember was this cute, tall boy with freckles and blue eyes, coming up to me and talking to me. My fifteen year old, gay ass was ecstatic that a cute guy was even looking at me. Also I had just watched a documentary on Bigfoot the night previously and I was thinking of locations where he could be.” Keith argued. PTA mom just nodded, she seemed to be a little scared and her face full of regret from asking how they met now, but neither of the two men noticed, wanting to continue their argument.

“That still doesn’t excuse you not knowing my name! And your horrible tragedy!” Lance pointed out while Keith groaned.

“Lance it’s been over twenty years, move on.” Keith grumbled earning a sharp “Fine!” as the two turned away grumbling. It was quiet for a few seconds, the PTA mom looking ready to bolt when Lance softly spoke up,

“So we’re sitting there, working on the project..”

_Lance sat there, writing out his part for the project when he noticed Keith fiddling with something inside his jacket again, wait was he playing with his knife? Was he going to stab Lance with it?!_

_“Hey.” Lance glanced up, face flushing when he saw Keith’s eyes staring back at him. Crap, he knows that I know he has a knife! Play it cool Lancey-Lance.._

_“Y-yeah?”Lance gulped, not sure what mullet wanted. He watched as Keith gave him a bored expression before looking around to check the coast was clear before reaching into his jacket and pulling out a…KitKat?_

_“Wanna share a KitKat?” He asked, raising an eyebrow as Lance continued to gape. Keith Mcfreakin’ Kogane brought food into a Biology classroom? He really was a bad boy!!_

_“Yeah!” Lance replied excited. He was always down to split a KitKat, except with his annoying siblings. Plus, maybe Keith wasn’t so bad after all, he was sharing candy with his arch rival, even though he didn’t know who he was, maybe Keith could be a potential friend-_

_Keith broke the candy in half, but not the typical horizontal break off suggestion the candy company recommends, or the well known way most NORMAL people do with KitKats, instead this monster broke the candy vertically! So instead of each of them having two whole KitKats, they each had four half pieces! The tragedy..._

_Lance stared in shock and horror as Keith offered him one half._

_“Here you go.” Keith smiled until he noticed the look on Lance’s face. What was with that face?_

_Lance glanced at Keith and the offered candy back and forth, like it was offensive to him in some way. Lance knew right then, Keith Kogane would be his enemy till the day he died._

_“What the fuck?” Lance started. Keith raised an eyebrow confused, about to ask what the problem was when Lance went off._

_“KEITH, YOU HEATHEN! YOU JUST-JUST BROKE IT DOWN THE MIDDLE? WHAT IN THE FRESH HELL? THERE ARE RULES KEITH! RULES! LET ME GUESS YOU PROBABLY BITE STRING CHEESE DON’T YOU?! ANY OTHER BACKWARDS WRONG WAYS YOU EAT FOOD? WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?!”_

____________________

“He continued to rant almost half an hour before the teacher finally sent us to the office, because SOMEONE ratted me out saying I had food in the class.” Keith shot Lance a half-heated glare while Lance scoffed.

“You can’t eat a KitKat right, you deserved to get detention, dare I say arrested even.” Lance stated crossing his arms as Keith started to argue.

“Whatever, in the end, after he packed up his things and left, he came back and grabbed the rest of the KitKat! I may be a heathen, but you ate my heathen candy so technically you’re a heathen now too.” Keith pointed out making Lance flush in anger or embarrassment, whichever one.

“That doesn't make any sense! Still, its an essential moment and how we officially met and became rivals, even though you insist we weren’t. I’m putting that KitKat thing on your tombstone one day.” Lance snorted as Keith’s face puckered in astonishment.

“Well, then, I’ll put on your tombstone ‘that cute guy who yelled at me over a KitKat and then eventually became my husband’. How does that sound?” Keith argued, although with a little less heat while Lance turned to him, eyes softening.

"Aww Keith." Lance leaned forward, pecking a quick kiss on his husbands mouth, drawing him into a hug despite the fact there were children running around now, making faces at the couple's lovey-dovey PDA. PTA mom was even looking super uncomfortable now, looking around as if trying to find an escape, or probably her kid.

“How about we get cremated instead? Grave robbers scare me and I don’t want spiders infesting my body after I’ve died.” Lance suggested earning an eye roll and nod from Keith.

“Sounds good to me…I’m just going to write that on your urn then.” Keith joked as Lancer screeched, starting to tickle his husband who couldn’t hold back his laughter.

PTA mom, Karen-Carol-Susan whatever just stood there smiling with such force as she casually slipped away. Geez, you ask a question and people tell you their whole life story! She eventually got away from the obnoxiously adorable couple, heading into the school crowd and happily spotting her daughter, McKayleigh. It was her first day of Kindergarten, and it seems she made a new friend already!

“McKayleigh! How was your first day sweetie? And who’s your new friend?” She bent down to greet the new little girl, who had long, thin black hair tied in two neat little braids, wearing a purple dress and clutching a backpack with a turtle on it. She even held a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's themed lunchbox, similar to the one her daughter has. 

“Mommy, this is Hoshiko! She’s from Japan! And she likes turtles too!” McKayleigh announced excited as her mom smiled gently at Hoshiko.

“That’s very far, are you new here?” She asked carefully which Hoshiko shook her head.

“No, I’ve been here for two years now. So I know the language, thanks.” She pointed out as her gaze drifted into the crowd before her face broke out into a smile and she hurriedly ran towards whatever excited her.

“Daddy! You’re here!” she cried out happily as she ran to whoever her daddy was.

McKayleigh watched her friend in the distance, making sure she was okay before turning to her mom.

“Hoshiko says she has two daddies! She was adopted, which means they took her in when she needed a home! Can people do that Mommy?”

“Yes sweetie, they certainly can. Some people have two mommies, or two daddies, or a mommy and daddy like you. Other children may have just one or the other and thats okay.” She told her daughter gently, smiling to herself as she thought over the couple’s story she met earlier. And some families start out rough but make it out in the end alright, she added to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So let me tell ya, my name is Heather and writing heathen so many times in one fic is so funny.


	14. 13 Years Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Manny is now 17 and relies on his favorite uncles more than ever. Lance still won't drop the Kit-Kat thing and we meet a new member of their family!
> 
> Warning: there is homophobia in this chapter, not directed at the main characters but its mentioned as well as the f-slur. Please enjoy reading but be safe!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had the worst weekend ever, literally almost had a panic attack in front of my moms family, but this was born from it, so at least some good came out of it! Enjoy!

Manny slumped against the wall outside the high school. It was late afternoon, close to dinnertime, his mom most likely still at work, his dad away at base as he usually was. With a sigh, Manny pulled out his cell phone, dialing a number he hadn’t called in a while, waiting for the other person to answer. He had just finished detention, which he received for decking the shit out of another classmate, who in Manny’s defense, was being a real dick. His attention snapped back to the phone as the person’s voice finally answered the call. 

“Hello? Manny?”

“..Uncle Lance? Are you busy?” Manny bit his lip, wincing when he caught the split part he earned from the fight.

“No, not really I’m at home right now. Why? Are you okay?” His uncle’s voice filled with concern made Manny shudder feeling like any moment he would start crying again.

“I-I’m at school. I got detention..again. I know Mom’s working and didn’t want to bother her, I figured you might be able to help me.”

“Oh Manny…Okay I’ll come get you. Meet me at the front okay?” Uncle Lance asked which Manny nodded before remembering to reply. He hung up then and gathered his bag to head around towards the front like they agreed. 

It was about thirty minutes later when a white cadillac escalade pulled up, the passenger window rolling down to reveal a face he hadn’t seen in a while. His uncle was much older now, the wrinkles starting to become more prominent around his eyes and mouth although he still maintained a youthful glow and attitude about him that Manny always admired. Half of his hair was an undercut, the other side grown out a little and slicked back in a small pompadour, probably for work. He was still wearing his signature button downs, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and of course the many friendships bracelets and necklaces his students gave him. Manny was pretty sure that red one was actually from Keith. His uncle had grown and matured since his days of taking care of Manny after school, but his signature blue eyes still retained that mischievous light whenever he smiled. Now that light was slightly diminished as Lance gave his nephew a concerned look as he unlocked the doors to let him in.

“Hey buddy. How are things?” Lance cringed as he noticed the black eye Manny was sporting. His nephew gave him a dejected look before opening the door to the backseat, placing his backpack on the seat, moving aside the carseat and toys that lingered there before collapsing into the passenger seat under his uncle’s watchful eye.

“Okay, lets start from the beginning. What happened?” Lance asked, turning the car off and facing his nephew. Manny stayed quiet, just shrugging it off like it wasn’t a big deal. Lance knew better though, considering he was also a teenager all those years ago. He knew how troubled Manny was right now, his phone conversations with Vanessa starting to worry him as she filled him in on Manny starting fights with other kids from school and barely talking to her. Lance looked around, noticed a few bleachers near the football field, and decided if they were gonna talk it out, here would be the perfect place. Lance turned the car off quickly and nodded his head towards the bleachers.

“Let’s talk real quick. I’m not in a hurry and I’m sure you aren’t either.” Lance offered, giving Manny a positive smile which thankfully worked as the moody teen sighed and got out of the car at least. Lance made a silent cheer for himself for getting that to work and led Manny over to the metal seats. The start of Fall had brought a chill in the air, the metal seats very cool and making Lance slightly regret taking Manny here, they should’ve just stayed in the car. His nephew didn’t seem to mind as he plopped in the seat, resting his feet on the bleacher below him as he leaned back against the one behind them.

“So, wanna tell me what happened? No judgement here kiddo, as you know I was a bit of a troublemaker in high school myself.” Lance bragged remembering those days pranking his friends, exploring abandoned homes, well more like trespassing, and that time he jay-walked…Still he had been a total badass!

“Uncle Lance, you got detention once for yelling at Uncle Keith over a Kit-Kat bar.”

“Hey! The way he ate that Kit-Kat bar, was something only a heathen would do!”

Manny chuckled at seeing his uncle’s indignant expression cross over his features till things quieted down between them.

“My friend Jason, he's gay and out. One of our classmates is a huge homophobe and has been relentlessly teasing Jason like theres anything wrong about that to begin with. Well, one day he was going too far and getting really aggressive and physical so I had enough. I decked him in the face and then it just escalated.” Manny sighed. He felt a hand grasp his shoulder, pulling him out of his funk.

“I’m proud of you kiddo. You stood up for your friend and that’s what matters. Fighting of course isn’t the right solution-”

“The guy called Jason a ‘faggot’.”

“Holy crow, nevermind.” Lance sighed, pinching his brow. He and Manny continued to sit there in silence. The memories of his fight coming back to him again, despite him mulling it over and over in detention all afternoon.

“So does your mom know?” Lance asked unsure. For all he knew he could be harboring a teenage delinquent and the last thing he wanted was an angry older sister who could easily kick his ass. She had too much dirt on him already, well technically all his older and younger siblings did.

“No, I told her I was studying at your house.” Yep, he was definitely going to die.

“Manny you shouldn’t lie to your mom like that. Lying just makes everything worse.” If it was even more possible, Manny’s demeanor drooped even more. Lance watched feeling bummed for his nephew but brightened a little as he thought of a plan.

“Hey come on, lets go home ok? We can talk to your mom there.” Lance suggested standing up and offering a hand to Manny. Manny smiled before wincing at the sting from his split lip and grabbing his uncles hand for balance. They both headed back to the car, the mood still somber but Lance was sure Manny would feel slightly better hanging out at his house rather than his own by himself.

Once they were both back in the car and buckled up, Lance asked him if he was okay with coming back to his place, but Manny shook his head.

“I should probably go back home, I don’t want to invade your space like this.” Manny added making Lance feel like a small piece was being torn right out of him.

“What? You’re family we’ll always welcome you to our place! You and Keith were inseparable when you were younger! There’s always space there for you Manny, never forget that. Plus, this way when we call Vanessa, we can distract her better! Maybe lessen the blow a little bit?” Lance smiled earning a small smile back. The kid had never quite grown out of those dimples that Lance loved. Manny nodded his head, amused.

“Okay.”

“Great! I know Keith and Hoshiko will be excited about you joining us for dinner!” Lance stated happily as he drove out of the parking lot Manny chuckling at his excitement.

                                                                                              ______________

 When they got home, Manny stepped out on the familiar pavement of their driveway, staring at the small one story house he practically grew up in when he was younger. He smiled seeing the red chevy pickup that was Keith’s truck, a practical purchase he had reminded them all when Lance and his parent’s teased him about it. He wondered if Keith still had the motorcycle parked somewhere? He knew Keith loved that bike like his baby, but it made sense to leave that one behind since he got a new baby after all.

The two of them stepped inside the small foyer, Lance grinning when he heard the telltale running feet and a loud “Poppy!!!” Manny watched as his new little cousin came running full speed in a..turtle kigurumi of all things..and faceplant right into Lance’s chest and outstretched arms, giggling when Lance blew a raspberry into her neck, tickling her.

“How’s my little star doing today? Or should I say turtle?” Lance asked, kissing his daughter again, planting big wet kisses all over her giggling cheeks.

“Where’s Daddy at Hoshiko?” Lance asked as Hoshiko’s giggles calmed down. She merely smiled up at Lance before pointing behind her in the direction of the living room.

“Let’s go get him, I have a surprise for him.” Lance offered earning a wide eyed expression from his daughter, almost causing him to burst into another laugh fit right before she opened her mouth and shrieked, “Daddy!!!”

Lance immediately began shushing her soothingly while also trying to contain his laughter as he reminded Hoshiko about using indoor voices as another voice, a deep laugh floated back to them from the living room followed by heavier footsteps. Manny smiled watching his uncle fawn over his daughter right as Uncle Keith came in, grinning at the sight of them. His grin turned into a look of astonishment before melting into a warm smile as he glanced over at Manny.

“Manny, nice to see you, it’s been a while.” Keith smiled as he leaned against the doorway. He was still wearing the same outfit from all those years ago when Manny first met him, jeans and a fire department issued t-shirt, but his body had grown more, both his and Uncle Lance’s actually. His uncle mildly resembled Shiro’s build back when he had first met the two firemen.

Uncle Keith had also cut his hair, finally getting rid of the mullet, much to Lance’s surprised discontent, but his bangs still hung low in his face. He also had a few wrinkles starting to sprout along the corners of his eyes and mouth, making him look wiser. Still, he held a spark in his violet eyes that reminded Manny of the rebellious spirit lurking inside.

Manny smiled in greeting as he waved at his uncle. “Hey Uncle Keith. Yeah, I asked Uncle Lance if he could pick me up, I got roped into joining dinner somehow.” He shrugged earning a small chuckle from the fireman. Lance, still holding Hoshiko, although she was now making grabby hands towards Keith, glanced between the two of them.

“Well that’s not all that happened today.” Lance stated, handing over his turtle daughter to Keith who practically cooed(Keith cooing was something Manny never thought was possible) at his daughter as she snuggled against his firm but gentle grip, planting her face into the crook between his shoulder and neck as Keith bounced her in his hold. He gave Manny a concerned frown as he glanced between the two of them.

“Manny, what’s going on? Is everything ok?” He asked unsure. He looked about the time he had to help Lance give Manny the Talk back when he was twelve. His dad had been overseas at the time and Vanessa only taught him a few things but thought it would be better hearing about the changes his body was going through from his two favorite uncles.

Although the results of that obstacle had been way more embarrassing.

“Our tree hugger friend here, got into a fight today.” Lance stated, crossing his arms, attempting to be stern. Manny sighed at the nickname, he was never gonna ditch that stupid name, all because he climbed a tree back when he was five.

Although it did bring his uncles together, so he was super proud of that.

Not surprisingly, Keith nodded his head seemingly impressed. “Cool.”

“Keith! No!”

“What, the kid has a right to defend himself! I’m assuming this was in self defense right?” Keith leaned forward towards Manny asking seriously while his husband just rolled his eyes. Manny shrugged.

“A little bit, yeah.” He agreed right as Lance pulled both him and Keith into the kitchen to sit at the table.

“He fought with another kid who was bullying his friend for being gay. I told him it was admirable he stood up for his friend, but fighting shouldn’t have been the outcome.” Lance explained, as Hoshiko began babbling about something to do with colors and Judge Judy.

“What was I supposed to do? Let him bully Jason for something that doesn’t even affect that guy? So he likes boys, big deal.” Manny complained. He remembered the slur the bully used against his friend too and immediately perked to bring that up.

“Oh and don’t forget he also called Jason a fag-”

“Hoshiko!! Why don’t you show me your newest Judge Judy portraits? Go on, let’s show them to Manny.” Lance encouraged as Keith hid a smile at Manny’s embarrassed expression. The little girl hopped off her daddy’s lap and immediately took off to go find her recent artistic masterpieces.

“Sorry Uncle Lance, I-” Lance waved him off.

“It’s okay, we slip up all the time, or more like Keith does.” Lance pointed out earning an eye roll from his exasperated husband.

“Anyways, you said this kid was bullying this Jason for being gay and threw slurs at him?” Keith asked, going back to serious mode. Manny nodded.

“Please tell me you punched him.”

“Keith!”

“What? The guy was a dick, I’m proud of my nephew for fighting back. It’s bigotry like that, that needs to be nipped at the bud before it transforms into the ugly monster it can become when it reaches an adult.”

“You have been watching too many alien movies again I see. Also theres the issue Manny still hasn’t told his mom.” Lance pointed out earning a startled expression from Keith.

“Sheep, that’s bad.”

“Sheep?”

“We’ll call Vanessa and tell her Manny’s staying with us for dinner and when she comes over, we can explain to her then whats happened.” Lance decided as he got up and grabbed his phone while rummaging in the freezer.

Manny nodded his head, okay with this plan, knowing his mom wouldn’t lose her shit with Hoshiko nearby. Lance handed something to Keith who nodded and scooted closer to Manny, leaning in close to examine the bruises on Manny’s face, in particular the black eye. Manny watched as his uncle gently eased an icepack over his eye, wincing at the cold sting but sighing as it soon brought relief to his aching muscles.

“Did you ice it after you got it?” Keith asked concerned as Manny nodded.

“Yeah the nurse gave me one but after it melted I just threw it away.” He responded as Keith nodded.

“You’ll have to keep it iced for at least twenty four hours but after that, switch to a warm compress, keeps the blood flowing and hurries the healing process.” He stated as he let go to allow Manny to hold it. He then began looking over the rest of Manny’s injuries which was mostly just a split lip and some bruises while Lance spoke with Vanessa on the phone, simultaneously pulling out multiple things for dinner.

“Did you learn all this medical stuff from fireman training?” Manny asked curious. Keith smiled as he shook his head, Lance’s booming laughter echoing across the house, he probably told his mom something funny.

“Actually, I learned all this stuff just before I was your age. I got into some fights when I was in high school as well.” Keith admitted right as Lance slid into his chair, apparently done conversing with Vanessa.

“Oh he got into some fights alright!” Lance threw Keith a sly look which he got a glare in return.

“Your uncle Keith was somewhat of a bad boy. Believe it or not, I was a bit edgy as well.” Lance boasted, earning two matching eye rolls from his husband and nephew. 

“Since when?” Keith demanded, crossing his arms as Lance thought.

“Well there was that fight between you and me-”

“You yelled at me over a Kit-Kat, Lance.”

“And I forgive you.” At Keith’s pointed glare, Lance threw his hands up in offense.

“Hey! You were eating it like a heathen! Someone had to tell you!” Lance defended as Keith gave him an unamused stare.

“By yelling at me in the middle of class?”

“Yes, I’m glad it worked too. Otherwise I wouldn’t allow our beautiful daughter pick up your terrible eating habits.” Keith raised an eyebrow at his husband before chuckling without humor.

“Oh really? Wanna bet on that?” Manny sighed loudly, making it clear he was not in the mood for his uncles to have one of their crazy competition streaks but he watched in dismay as Hoshiko came shrieking back in, carrying a stack full of drawings, all supposedly from her Judge Judy portrait series, and slapping it down at Lance and Keith’s feet. Lance eagerly picked her up, giving her a quick kiss before settling her in his lap as Keith reached down to pick up the drawings.

“Hoshiko, tell daddy how we eat our Kit-Kat’s in this house.” Lance grinned wickedly as Keith narrowed his eyes at him. Hoshiko smiled as she happily turned to her Daddy, not aware of the glare he was giving Papi and happily announced, “Not like heathens!”

“When did you teach her that!?”

“When I found out you were teaching her about Mothman!”

“Can I leave, please? Can I just stop existing right now?” Manny bemoaned as his uncles got into it.

“Fine, watch this.” Keith stood up, heading into the kitchen to retrieve something and coming back with a Kit-Kat in his hand. He sat back down waving the candy bar, watching as Hoshiko’s eyes grew round as he waved the candy in front of her as if she was a dog, not a human.

“Hoshiko, you want a Kit-Kat?”

“Do not offer her candy before dinner!”

“Do you want to wait an hour and half later to settle this?” Keith tossed back earning a silent challenging look from Lance. He sighed before leaning back in his chair in defeat, waving his hand without a care.

“Okay, fine. But just a small piece.”

“Duh, I’m not giving her the whole bar four hours before her bedtime!” Keith cried out offended as he carefully peeled back the wrapper, breaking off a small piece horizontally and not vertically, like a heathen would and giving it to Hoshiko.

“Okay sweetie, how do we eat a Kit-Kat bar? Hm?” Lance encouraged as the three year old sat there, looking between her two daddies. They both watched intensely while Manny watched in boredom as Hoshiko began breaking off the already small pieces of Kit-Kat, vertically of course as its suggested by the candy indents.

“Yes!!” Lance cheered as Keith shushed him and directed his husband’s attention to Hoshiko once more. The child was still breaking off the Kit-Kat piece. Lance and Keith both watched in silent horror as she broke the piece into tiny pieces and finally popped one in her mouth. She smiled as she chewed while her dads stared down at her in awed confusion.

“I don’t-”

“Hoshiko, why?”

Manny chuckled seeing the matching expressions of befuddlement on his uncles faces before Hoshiko turned to him and eagerly began talking about her drawings. Lance and Keith, both blushing from realizing how stupid they were acting, took the Kit-Kat away and began starting dinner, their toddler happily distracted.

Eventually, dinner came and went, Vanessa soon on her way and Lance retired to the living room with Hoshiko, wanting to tire her out some before her nightly bath, as Manny helped Keith clean the dishes.

“So back to what you said earlier Uncle Keith, did fighting help you deal with bullies?” Manny asked unsure. Keith glanced at him before sighing and wiping his hands on a dry towel.

“Honestly, I didn’t really feel better about myself afterwards. Eventually I learned to just ignore them. There’s always going to be close minded people like that bully, but you definitely shouldn’t use violence to solve the problem. If anything, its just going to get you into trouble, and I know your Uncle Lance would be very upset with me if I encouraged you to keep at it.” Keith smirked seeing the frown on Manny’s face.

“So how do I comfort my friend Jason then? He doesn’t even want to be at school anymore.” Manny asked frustrated. Keith set down the last dish before turning to Manny.

“Well it seems pretty far off and uncertain, but tell him things will eventually get better. He’ll go off to college or whatever he wants to do, meet new people like himself, make new friends, and he’ll still have to deal with the occasional homophobe, but the best thing he can do is keep going on. Frankly, I enjoy that my existence pisses people off, so maybe he can work with that. Just let him know that he has a friend who can stay by his side whenever he needs one.” Keith smiled as Manny nodded.

“Also, just in case you need to, the best way to throw a punch is to make sure you don’t hurt your hand. Just clench your fingers inside and make sure your thumb is covering your second and third knuckles, like this. If you don’t make a proper fist, you won’t be able to throw a decent punch. Oh another thing, don’t tell your mom or Uncle Lance I taught you this.” Keith demonstrated for Manny, even helping him correct his fingers to where Manny’s fist looked similar to Keith’s. Manny nodded the whole time, thanking Keith afterwards before the two fell silent again until Manny asked him a personal question, hoping he wasn’t being too intrusive.

“Do you think, if you hadn’t realized you were gay, things would be much different?” Manny asked. Keith thought about it, even glancing up towards the living room when he heard Lance’s and Hoshiko’s familiar shrieks of laughter and smiled to himself.

“Pretty sure I would’ve realized at some point in my life.” Keith chuckled. Manny watched his uncle grow soft, love and care deep in his voice and Manny knew he was definitely reflecting back over the wonderful years he spent with his Uncle Lance, the two dating and finally getting hitched and now after a long time waiting, welcomed their daughter to their weird little family.

Keith stood up and headed back to the living room, planting himself beside his husband, giving him a quick kiss while Hoshiko went back to coloring, apparently deciding she needed to practice her ‘surrealism turtle drawings’. Manny smiled watching the little family, before feeling something rubbing against his leg. Glancing down, he let out a soft 'oh' before reaching down and petting Blue’s head. The feline purred pleasantly as she weaved slowly between Manny’s legs, her age making her slower and less graceful but like the attention brat she was, she plopped down at Manny’s feet, paws raised in the air as if begging Manny to rub her belly.

Manny chuckled leaning down and lightly scratched her belly, Blue tilted her head back relaxing until a low ‘meow’ pulled her away from her blissful state and she looked up quickly to see Red ambling over slowly and plopping down, practically on top of her. 

Manny smiled scratching the newcomer’s ears as the sounds of Hoshiko chatting away about turtle facts, and his uncles making encouraging comments here and there floated around the house, making it feel like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We formally meet Hoshiko! She's adopted from Japan, likes turtles, watching Judge Judy and thinks her dads are hopeless but loves them anyways! I cannot tell yall how long I've been wanting to get this chapter out. I probably waited too long, but shes sooo cute! Expect more of this lil gal!


	15. Space Cats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance and Keith take the cats to the vet. Lance has an interesting cat carrier but Keith thinks it's ridiculous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the idea of Lance carrying Blue around in one of these http://u-pet.co/. 
> 
> Also fun fact! This entire au started because of this oneshot idea. Thank you brain for random dreams!

“Come on Keith! Pick up the pace mullet!” 

Keith glared at the back of his way too cheerful(but adorable) boyfriend as he marched, _fucking marched_ , down the street towards the vet clinic. It was a regular sunny Saturday, too fucking early for Keith’s taste since he liked to sleep in. He used to think Lance was a late sleeper as well, given how tired and grumpy he was constantly in high school and too lethargic to even move until it was lunchtime.

Boy was he wrong.

Since Lance was a teacher and used to getting up at five thirty am, five days a week, Lance grew into being an early riser now more than ever. It used to suck considering Keith would come home around four in the morning from a shift, only to be annoyingly disturbed an hour later. Although the apology morning kisses more than made up for it…

Keith gripped the straps to the carrier, slowly walking along with Lance till they reached a coffeeshop on the way to the clinic. Lance happily strolled in, like an adventurer just beginning his quest, Keith tagging along silently, doing his best to ignore the low irritated meowing he was toting around. Lance walked right up to the counter, ordering the first sugary, iced drink that was certainly too cold for this weather, Keith wrinkling his nose in distaste while Lance smirked back at him. Keith ordered a latte, pulling out his wallet even as Lance protested, giving his boyfriend a hard stare as he handed the cash over to the barista.

“You’re buying me dinner later.” Keith stated earning a scoff and amused eye roll from the other as the barista eyed the two of them, handing over the change.

“You two are so cute. Also, you have adorable cats!” She squealed. 'As if this morning couldn’t be rough already,' Keith thought. Lance beamed with pride, spinning around slowly to show off his pride and joy, Blue, who was seated in a little backpack with a little window bubble for her to see out.

“Thank you! Nothing but the best for my princess!”

“Oh she’s so cute! What’s her name?” The barista cooed as she leaned forward to wave at the little cat who was looking around the shop with wide eyed curiosity.

“Blue! My boyfriend’s cat’s name is Red! Which, we did not coordinate by the way.” Lance smirked as the girl peered to look at Red who was still grumpy and clearly not happy about some stranger peering into her carrier.

Before Lance could launch into another passionate story about how they met up and everything, Keith noticed their drinks placed on the counter, ready to go and tugged on his boyfriend’s sleeve. 

“Lance? The vet?”

“Oh thats right! I’m sorry I’d love to tell you our wondrous journey of us getting together but we really got to go! Thanks for the coffee!” Lance waved as Keith started edging towards the door, grumpy cat in one hand, hot latte in the other. The barista nodded in understanding as Lance picked up his sugary drink and they both headed out the door, meeting the slight chill of morning as they briskly walked towards their destination, only a few buildings down the block. It was apparently too long of a wait though as Red began squirming in her carrier, again.

“Ugh Red! Keep still! You’ll get out soon enough!”Keith complained, trying to balance his drink and the cat together. Lance sipped at his drink noisily, giving Keith and his cat a glance over.

“Hmm you wouldn’t be struggling so much if you just got-”

“I’m not getting that ridiculous spaceship backpack Lance. What am I? An elementary schooler?”

“You wish. Seriously Keith, this backpack is the coolest thing! Blue absolutely loves it! It's like she's a little cat astronaut! Red could be one too, they could see each other in their special windows and everything! They'd be space cats Keith! How cute would that be?” Lance pleaded, turning to the side to show off Blue, who was sitting in the backpack, happy and content as she took in all the sights around her. Lance spun back around to face Keith, pointing at the dingy cat carrier with barely any windows for Red to see.

“Red can barely see out of that! No wonder she’s freaked out! She’s too much like you, how would you feel being trapped in a small confining cage, not able to see?” Lance pleaded, layering on an extra sad note to his argument, pulling on Keith’s heartstrings.

The thing was, when Keith had first started seeing Lance, he was amazed at all the cat products Lance had for Blue. Two scratching post towers, almost several beds laying around and a personalized dish bowl with her name on it. It almost scared Keith to be honest.

It was all over the top and ridiculous, but what took the cake, was the cat carrier Lance had for Blue. It was a backpack style carrier with breather holes and enough room to fit a cat comfortably inside, but it looked like a spaceship with a little pocket bubble for Blue to look around.

It was adorable and oh so stupid at the same time.

Keith was even more shocked at how Blue would just easily climb into it, even if they weren’t going anywhere.

“I’m not paying 150 dollars for that thing. Besides, I don’t know if Red would like that even better.” Keith pointed out. Lance rolled his eyes as he sauntered off in the direction of the vet. They had finally reached the clinic with Lance holding the door open for his beloved and grumpy cat who grumbled a thank you before ducking in embarrassed. As the receptionist regarded Red with familiar unease, the cat had now taken to trying to gnaw on the carrier bars to get free, Lance gave Keith a pointed look again, the other male groaning as he sagged into a waiting room chair.

“Okay fine, I’ll consider it.” He moaned before taking a long sip of his latte as Lance cheered, Red still attempting to break free of her prison.

                                                                                              ______________________

“Oh hi, nice to see you two again!” Lance smiled at the enthusiastic barista.

“Hi! We’re back!” He gestured towards Keith who trudged up behind him, eyes on the menu board, barely paying attention to the conversation.

“And I see some other familiar faces too!” The barista spoke, eyes lighting up as Lance turned to show off Blue, once again happily looking out her little window, watching the lady coo over her.

Keith finally tuned in to their conversation giving Lance a curious look as the barista turned to him.

“So wheres the grumpy cat at?”

“Right here of course!” Lance laughed pointing at his displeased boyfriend’s expression.

“I am paying for coffee you know.” Keith reminded him as he sighed and turned to show off his new cat carrier. It was the exact same cat carrier as Lance’s only a vibrant orangey-red color opposite to Lance’s bright turquoise one. Red was sitting happily in the carrier, eyes closed as she purred. The barista peered through the window to really look and cooed at the peaceful Red.

“They’re both still cute as ever! You two are so lucky to have them!”

“Yep..and each other.” Lance coughed, blushing a bit as Keith turned to him surprised before it melted into an awed expression. He curled his fingers with Lance’s, hands clasped together as they got their coffees, bonding with barista over their cats. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that was short but there will be more this month! Especially some Halloween themed oneshots! Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading!


	16. Too Spoopy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Halloween chapter! Written just in time! Basically our favorite trio are teenagers again and meeting up for a little haunted house investigating! Keith tags along for the spooky ride, and the gang get the shit scared out of them. Plus a heartfelt moment between Keith and Lance in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo just to let everyone know, because they're teenagers in this chapter, this takes place before Lance realized he was bisexual(since in the main storyline, he told Keith he realized he was, back in college) so in this chapter, Lance believes his fixation on Keith is nothing more than enemies/rivalry. Of course, nobody else believes that but hey, Lance has plenty of time to figure it out for himself ;)

“Will you two hurry it up? The ghosts are gonna leave before we get there in time for the haunting hour.” 

“Cool your jets, Pidge. The ghosts aren’t going anywhere, especially at this time of night.” Lance muttered.

Their little trio had decided the best way to celebrate Halloween this year was by exploring this abandoned and also condemned house that sat outside the city, about a forty five minute drive. While Hunk and Lance thought of way better alternatives, like taking their nieces and nephews trick or treating, despite the fact they were babies at this point, still seeing babies in costumes was adorable and much better than exploring some rickety old house.

Plus, neither of them liked ghosts. Especially Lance.

“Guys, I’m just going to point out here, this is a really, really bad idea.” Hunk stated as he drove along the dirt road that lead to the house. Since Lance hadn’t gotten his after nines permit, and Pidge was still in driving courses, Hunk was the only viable driver for the evening, which was fine since he had a cool Jeep Wrangler, perfect for ghost hunting aesthetics.

“Hunk you’ve been saying that since we made plans to do this like, three months ago.” Pidge pointed out.

“Yea, its that bad of an idea!” Hunk cried. Lance groaned, drawing their attention to him as he leaned against the passenger door, crossing his arms along his lanky frame.

“This is so boring, Did it have to be Halloween night Pidge? Lacey C. is throwing that Halloween party tonight!” Lance complained, dreaming of all the beautiful girls he could’ve hit on and possibly smooched with by the end of the night. Haha and Keith wouldn't be the school heartbreaker anymore, no kisses for him. None for Keith Kogane.

“Well I was going to do it alone, but then you two insisted on coming with me! So quit your complaining, we’re here now so suck it up buttercup.” Pidge stuck out their tongue in defiance which Lance slumped in his seat more, grumbling about how he could be kissing a pretty girl as they drove up towards the house, driving as close as they could until they ran into the old tree blocking the rest of the road that was banning anyone entrance. The group just ignored the tree and the various signs stating the danger and the fact they were trespassing, choosing to walk the rest of the way, parking the jeep and heading down the road. Pidge took up the lead, being the one most interested in testing out the ghost detector they built the other day.

The Wardens Residence was infamous throughout the state for its dark past which supposedly caused many deaths of innocent people. Some who say, their vengeful souls still reside in that house, ready to torment the first living person they see.Lance had heard the many stories, all of them different and varying to certain degrees of what exactly happened at the spooky mansion, and he didn’t particularly care to hear any of that. His older siblings used to tease him constantly when he was little, saying they were going to drive up to the house and ditch him there for the ghosts to possess which little Lance would cry, run to his mama for comfort and have them scolded for scaring him. Serves them right.

Lance jolted, almost letting a scream fly out when he collided with something, or rather someone who happened to be Hunk.

“Hunk what gives?” Lance rubbed his head, now sore from the collision. Hunk didn’t even look like he had been affected by the run in.

“Pidge stopped for some reason.” He pointed out, shrugging.

“I texted another person to come join us. They should be here pretty soon.” Lance’s face lit up excitedly.

“Is it Lacey?!” He asked eyes shimmering with hope until Pidge shook their head.

“It’s Keith. He says he’ll be here in a minute.” Just like that, Lance’s mood soured.

This is the worst Halloween ever.

“I’m missing possibly one of the greatest Halloween parties of my young adult life to go ghost hunting with my rival?!” Lance screeched. Pidge blinked unimpressed as they straightened the glasses perched on their nose.

“Yea, pretty much.”

Lance fumed where he stood, face getting red as he and Pidge faced off with Hunk standing in the middle, glancing unamused at them both.

“How could you do this to me Pidge? You know I don’t like him!”

“That rivalry is all in your head Lance! He wanted to explore this place as much as I did, I wasn’t gonna leave him out just because you can’t stand being around him!”

“Some friend you are!”

“ENOUGH!!” Hunk bellowed. He quickly placed himself between the two bickering nerds, each hand grabbing the back of the others shirts and pulling them apart, much to their protest.

“Pidge, that was pretty inconsiderate of you to not think of Lance’s feelings about inviting Keith.” Pidge dropped their head, nodding slightly while Hunk turned to Lance, who was still trying to squirm out of Hunk’s grip and failing to do so.

“Lance…” Lance jerked his head up, having only heard his friend that serious only a handful a times when it truly mattered. Needless to say, Lance gave Hunk extra attention before the big guy continued.

“You’ve got to get over this rivalry thing buddy, it was only a Kit-Kat.” With that, Hunk released his friends, ignoring the shocked expression on Lance’s face and Pidge’s quiet snickering. 

Lance straightened up, crossing his arms as he turned his head.

“Fine. I guess it will be fun to see Keith, outside of school. Maybe he’ll show us his skills in knife throwing again.” Lance scoffed but only received silence in response.

“That actually sounds kinda cool?” Hunk stated with Pidge nodding eagerly.

“I was just thinking that!” Lance sighed, listening to the two before they turned their attention to him.

“Fine! I guess he’s pretty cool at some things.”

“Who’s cool?” A voice spoke up, right behind Lance which made him jump and scream in fright as he raced to leap behind Hunk and put distance between himself and whoever that voice belonged to. He peeked fearfully around Hunk only to scowl as his gaze landed on none other than Keith Kogane, his rival from school.

“You again!” Lance pointed earning an exasperated look from Pidge who stepped forward to bump fists with Keith.

“Glad you could make it! You ready to see some ghosts?” Pidge asked earning a small smile from Keith.

“Yeah, especially if Lance is gonna be that jumpy and scared all night.” Keith smirked as Lance felt blood rush to his head in anger but was held back by Hunk.

“Why don’t we get started?” Hunk offered as the two teens continued glaring at each other.

                                                                                                ______________________

 

“Did you hear that theory about the woman slitting her husband’s neck as revenge for his affairs with several of the servants?”

“Oh! What about the one where there was a huge party and the servants poisoned everyone who attended?”

“I heard the original owner used to lure children here and take them to the basement where he would cut them up and eat them.”

“Guys could you lighten up a little?” Lance mumbled as he felt goosebumps crawling all over his skin. Pidge rolled their eyes in response, giving him a smirk as they turned around to face him while walking backwards.

“Why? You getting scared?” They teased. Lance snorted, giving them his best chill face as he secretly hoped the gremlin would trip and fall on their face.

“No! Even if I was, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that!” 

“Why did you come along if you were scared anyhow?” Keith grumbled as he moved overgrown tree branches out of the way, letting them smack into Lance each time.

Lance growled. “Because I’m not letting Pidge go by themselves, thats why! Besides, we obviously can’t trust you Mr. Knife-Fight guy. What if you’re secretly a killer and murder Pidge?” Lance looked extremely proud of his comment although Keith didn’t seem to mind.

“Then I’d be a terrible serial killer bringing all three of you instead of just one at a time. It’s easier that way.” Keith stated causing Lance to stop in his tracks staring after the mullet weirdo until Hunk gently guided him to keep going.

Soon the small group made it to the gates outside the mansion, sitting in the short distance, looking ready to just fall apart. There were dead kudzu vines tangled everywhere, around the property, spilling out the pane-less windows, tangling over the chimneys and roof. As if the alarming amount of dead plants weren’t enough, there were also cobwebs hanging off the trees and giant spiderwebs still inhabited by their owners. Lance shivered as he spotted a huge spindly black one sitting in its web, almost hovering in the air until Hunk gently took his hand and guided him away towards the front entrance of the house where Keith and Pidge were waiting.

“Alright..lets do this.” Pidge grinned as they reached for the knob and twisted it, only for the door to remain shut. Pidge jostled it a few more times, impatience growing till Keith finally budged them over and tried himself.

“Great..how are we supposed to open it?” He grumbled as Lance glided forward casually.

“Maybe you just gotta knock?” He joked and even knocked on the door. He turned around giving his friends a prideful look only for it to disappear when he heard a low creaking sound. He turned quickly, mouth gaping along with the others as the rotted door before them, slowly opened, creaking the whole way as it rested along the wall. Lance turned pale, gulping at the sight as Pidge and Keith curiously entered.

“Wow its so much bigger than it looks!” Pidge stated as their flashlight beam flew around in different directions. Keith glanced around peering in the darkness before he reached into his side pocket and pulled out a small, portable flashlight, clicking it on to join Pidge’s light. Hunk and Lance remained just outside the door, eyes wide with fear.

“So..no ghosts here! We can go back now right? There’s still time, we can make that party if we hustle.” Lance suggested already about to turn back when Keith spoke, voice harsh and biting.

“We still haven’t seen the rest of the house, idiot. Just wait outside then if you’re too scared.” Keith wandered off ignoring the heated glare Lance was sending his way. Without another thought, Lance stomped into the house after Keith rambling about how he was really brave, not scared of anything, leaving Hunk behind and alone at the doorstep still.

“So we’re all just gonna forget the fact the doors opened themselves?” When no-one answered him, too busy to explore the house, Hunk sighed in disappointment as he cautiously stepped inside.

“Yep. I guess so.”

                                                                                                  ________________________

 

The group explored around the first floor, finding weary furniture hear and there. Lance occasionally growing more comfortable and cracking a joke while Hunk mostly used Pidge as a shield every time there was a creak. When the downstairs was thoroughly searched, Pidge groaned, annoyed their equipment hadn’t picked up anything yet.

“Ughhh!!! This isn’t picking up anything! I’m not getting any readings on the EMF meter or the infrared camera!” Pidge pouted, squatting to the dusty floor to fiddle with their tech. Keith glanced around, moving the flashlight around with him as he gazed over to the stairs.

“I’m gonna check upstairs.” He announced, heading towards the staircase when a hand gripped his shoulder, yanking him back. Lance stood there, glaring at Keith, tapping his foot impatiently.

“Dude we’re in an old house, you can’t just go wandering around by yourself! At least stick with the buddy system.” Lance suggested. Keith seemed to contemplate it for a bit before finally nodding in agreement.

“Okay, you go with me.” Lance’s eyes bugged out of his head.

“I-w-what?”

“Hunk can stay here and help Pidge figure out their tech while you and I go explore the upstairs, see if anything happens.” Keith stated. Before Lance could object, he spun back around and headed towards the stairs again, leaving Lance gaping and spazzing about the situation.

“Can you believe this guy?!” Pidge shook their head, although judging by the small quip of their smile, Lance could tell they were also amused as hell by this.

“Well I do believe your 'buddy' is halfway up the stairs already.” Pidge pointed out earning a shriek from Lance before he sprinted towards the steps.

“Dammit Keith! Wait up!”

                                                                                                 _______________________

Keith and Lance explored around the upstairs, finding it was in the same state as the rest of the mansion. Keith seemed to have an idea where he was going, so Lance just followed him around, albeit a bit grumpily as he did so. There were just as many rooms to explore that were also big and open spaced as the downstairs. Some of the walls were missing huge chunks, as if someone came by and chopped up some of the walls, like they were looking for something. Probably had been looking for the hidden treasure, which the place was rumored to have back in the 1940’s till that theory had been disproven, considering one of the owners went broke after their crops failed them and couldn’t afford to make payments. They found several bedrooms that connected along each other, some sharing multiple wash rooms. Ultimately, there was nothing but old damaged furniture, cobwebs, and dust. Lots of freakin’ dust.

It was all a little too spooky honestly, the goosebumps Lance felt at the beginning had never gone away, crawling all along his body, making him shiver. Keith however, acted like nothing had happened. ‘The mullet probably feels at home here,’ Lance scoffed.

Still, Keith’s calm demeanor was slightly comforting. Lance couldn’t help but shuffle closer and closer to the other boy, practically feeling the heat radiate off the other.

They both shuffled through the rooms, the atmosphere too quiet for Lance’s liking. He felt like he could hear his heart beating louder and louder through his chest. As he opened his mouth to ask a question, a loud bang rang throughout the upstairs, a wild scream ripping out of Lance’s throat. Any old day, he’d learn to control his screams, since he has really high pitched ones that got him teased constantly. Keith impulsively jumped in front of Lance, looking around wildly for the cause of the bang while Lance muttered in Spanish over and over again as he clung to Keith’s jacket.

A gentle pressure squeezed Lance’s hand, he fearfully glanced down to see Keith gripping his hand, for comfort or to release his hold on his jacket maybe, but it didn’t do much to ease Lance’s fears.

“Okay can we go now?” Lance whispered pleading while Keith kept looking around to double check and see if anyone was there.

“It could be someone squatting up here with us...I’m gonna go check the rooms on the left. You check the right.” Keith began walking off but was startled as a firm hand gripped the back of his jacket and dragged him back.

“No way in hell I’m leaving you after hearing that! I-Keith, I don’t like this at all.” Lance glanced around nervously, as if he was expecting that noise again. Keith watched him, not saying anything for the longest time before he reached for Lance’s hand, gently squeezing it in his own.

“Alright, we’ll go join the others then. Okay?” Lance quickly nodded and just like that, the moment was over as Lance quickly shoved Keith out of the way and bolted down the stairs, taking two at a time with Keith grumbling after him, muttering about how they were ‘having a bonding moment’.

As Keith came down, he heard the telltale voices of Lance and the others, and quickly headed towards their voices. They were out in the hallway, where they left them, only Lance was even more panicked than before.

“Pidge, I’ve had enough for tonight with this hocus pocus baloney! We need to go.” Lance stated firmly. He groaned as Pidge shook their head.

“No, I just need some more evidence! Keith what did you guys find? Hunk and I went down into the cellar but the only thing that happened there was that Hunk barfed twice.” Pidge stated glumly as all eyes drifted to Hunk. The usual cheerful boy held his hands up placatingly at their questioning stares.

“I vomit when I’m nervous, alright? Can’t exactly control it.” He shrugged. Lance snickered in response.

“Do you think thats considered disrespecting the dead?”

Before any of them could answer, a loud bang, one louder than the first time, rang throughout the house, the four teenagers freezing on the spot. The sound echoed throughout the empty house until it was just a faded memory in each of their minds when Hunk quietly whispered,

“Maybe it was just the wind?”As Lance and Pidge began nodding their heads, feeling slightly calmer, Keith shook his head no and pointed towards the closest window next to them. The window was wide open, no glass left in it, although it was covered in dead weeds and kudzu, yet there was no trace of any wind coming through or jostling the plants. Hunk gulped at his disproven theory, notably shuffling closer to Pidge who was even starting to look creeped out as well.

“Maybe we should-” Lance began before Keith quickly shushed him.

“Shh! I think I hear something!” He whispered and the four got quiet again, this time feeling like the tension was building high. The four of them stood there in a circle, eyeing each other until a long eerie creak, like a rusted door being opened slowly, floated throughout the house, bringing chills to the young group until a loud slam and the echo of repeated footsteps, multiples of them, came flooding throughout the house, as if someone or something was running around upstairs and down the steps.

Nobody stood still after that. The gang quickly took off shouting over another, often running into each other or bumping into the walls or furniture in their desperation to get out. The front door they had entered through was wide open, despite the fact they had left it closed earlier. They dashed out the door, none of them looking back until they had raced past the front gate, made it several yards away from the house by the time any of them slowed down, pausing to catch their breaths. Lance noticed at some point, Hunk had been carrying Pidge on his back the whole time, Scooby Doo style and everything. He also noticed Keith was bent over slightly, panting, his brow looking slightly sweaty which normally would gross Lance out, but seeing Keith that way..oddly felt hot?Lance quickly shook his head, turning his attention to Pidge who silently climbed down from Hunk’s back, almost robotic in movement which had Lance worried the poor kid was scarred for life.

“Pidge? Pidgeon?” Lance asked which caught the attention of both Keith and Hunk as the younger teen silently wandered down the road, almost in a trance like state.

“That..was awesome!” Pidge shouted, nearly bursting the others ear drums. As Pidge’s words processed, the others regarded their friend with blatant confusion and amazement.

“That went way better than expected! We didn’t get any evidence which sucks ass, but holy shit! I nearly pissed myself!” Pidge was practically jumping up and down and the others were so baffled.

“That’s it. I’m done. I’m going home, putting on my best face mask, then going to sleep. I am done!”Lance clapped his hands and took off walking. He didn’t care at this point if the others were following, he was tired.

The group made it back to Hunk’s jeep, all in one piece and still intact.

“I never thought I’d be so excited to see this bright, barf yellow, piece of crap in my life!” Lance hugged the vehicle, even kissing the door much to Hunk’s indignation. Keith stood off to the side as the others climbed in, it wasn’t till Hunk noticed Keith still standing outside the doors he rolled the window down, giving Keith a confused look.

“What’s up man? I thought I’d drop you off.” He asked which Keith shrugged his shoulders.

“I can just walk. It’ll be fine. Besides I live farther away from you guys after all.” Keith pointed out. Lance scoffed.

“Dude quit talking crazy and get in here. There’s no way in hell, we’re letting you walk home after all that!” Lance smiled, drawing a small one from Keith in return. The others joined in, finally urging Keith to jump in the back, squeezing in next to Lance, much to his slight embarrassment and Lance’s obliviousness as always. As the jeep took off, Pidge began eagerly making plans about updating their tech mostly expanding on the machines to make them get better readings with Hunk offering his opinions here and there, a little excited about the idea of what else they could do. Keith continued to sit there, half listening when Lance tapped his hand, drawing his attention.

“So..about what happened back there…Were you scared? I mean, at least a little bit?” Lance asked timidly. Keith thought about his response a little, before shrugging.

“I mean I guess? Mostly I was just worried something might happen to you guys.” Keith admitted. Lance smiled at that, and Keith wondered if he would ever see more of that smile, especially if it was directed at him. 

“See, I feel like I can be completely brave, especially when it comes to my friends and family. No one messes with my friends and family dude. But ghosts? Spiders? Too spooky!” Keith giggled at that, earning a wide eyed expression from Lance in return. Keith Kogane does not giggle!

“I mean, thats understandable, some spiders can kill you.” Keith reasoned, earning a nod of understanding from Lance. The two talked a bit more, mostly Lance retelling a few of his horror stories with spiders and Keith listening with rapt attention. When there was a sudden dip in conversation, Keith finally spoke out.

“I-I’m scared of the future.” He admitted, earning a surprised look from Lance.

“Really? Why?” He asked curious. Keith was super smart and always one step ahead of everyone, he was going places after high school most likely.

“I don’t know. My dad’s not around anymore so I guess I’ll truly be on my own? The Johnsons are nice but they’re only temporary, it’ll just be me. Alone for good.” Keith drifted, glancing out the window and missing Lance’s worried expression. 

Lance lightly laid a hand on Keith’s shoulder, drawing the raven haired boy’s attention back to Lance who was now offering a supportive grin.

“Hey man, you’re gonna be great ok? You’re pretty smart and quick reflexes, I’m sure you’ll figure it out sometime. Besides, you won’t be completely alone, all of us are gonna be clueless on what to do after high school. And we still have plenty of time left before then right?” Lance gave Keith one of the brightest smiles ever, Keith could’ve gone blind at the sight. 

Keith smiled back in return. “Yeah, you’re right.” He said and earned a happy smile back. Keith sat back in the seat, relaxing just slightly, listening as Lance soon joined Hunk and Pidge’s conversation. He smiled watching Lance, rethinking over his words and felt hope for the future, because just as Lance said, he’d never be completely alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween to everyone! Hope this was worth it! 
> 
> Also did anyone notice my Lacey Chabert(Nyma's VA) reference there?


	17. Warmth/Twin Beds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some holiday Klancemas featuring two oneshots for the price of one! Enjoy and Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it! :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warmth: Keith comes home to half a house covered in Christmas lights and joy but theres no sign of Lance anywhere.
> 
> Twin Beds: Lance is excited Keith will be spending his first Christmas with his family, if only it worked out as he planned. 
> 
> I promise these are not as threatening/shady as they sound lmao.

                                                                                                **Warmth**

Keith groaned as he stepped off his motorcycle, shaking his head as freshly fallen snowflakes fell from his hair. It was getting too cold to ride his motorcycle out, which Lance constantly reminded him multiple times he needed to just get a car, but Keith would rather die than give up his baby dammit.

Okay he wouldn’t die but hell, he was attached to his motorcycle. He’s had it since he graduated just after high school, he had suffered through the cold seasons before with that bike, what’s one more?

As Keith finished mussing his hair, wincing at the wet strands the snow had left behind, he paused now noticing half the house he shared with Lance was lit up with lights, the other side..not so much. ‘What the fuck?’ Keith thought irritably. He and Lance were supposed to put the lights up together! With a bit more energy in his step, Keith hurried into the house ready to confront his boyfriend on the matter when he stopped in the doorway, seeing all the fairy lights strung around the floor, some decorations scattered here and there.

“Lance?” Keith called, hoping his rising frustration couldn’t be heard but as he waited and waited, there was no response from his beloved, only the meowing of their cats, Blue and Red snuggling against he base of the Christmas tree Lance had set up immediately the day after Thanksgiving. Keith bent over to scratch behind Blue's ears, Red quickly attacking his hand with love bites causing his previous anger to disappear before switching to confusion instead.

“Lance?” Keith called again, getting up and stepping cautiously around the various decor lying around, the living room resembling a closing out sale at a Christmas store. Keith made his way over to the kitchen, opening the fridge and pulling out a beer as he surveyed the rest of the place.

He had to admit, Lance had good taste in Christmas decorations. Nothing too tacky thankfully, and the fairy lights glowed a soft white, lighting up the living room area bringing an enchanting mood to the atmosphere. Keith wandered around, scoping out their bedroom and extra room to see if Lance was hiding away in any of those rooms but so far, he was still MIA. With a concerned frown, Keith pulled out his cell phone ready to call when he spotted Lance’s cell phone, resting on the countertop, next to his car keys.

‘Okay, maybe Hunk picked him up or something, but normally he would tell me where he’s going. Even when he uses the bathroom to take a shit he tells me.’ Keith rolled his eyes at the thought. 

As Keith began to call Hunk,he glanced out the windows to the backyard, eyes grazing until he noticed their ladder, or rather Shiro’s ladder they borrowed and forgot to give back, laying out in the dewy grass. Keith hung up quickly, and trekked outside curious. As soon as he stood beside the ladder he glanced up noticing the lights on the back of the house. How did Lance get a reindeer up there?

“Keith!” Keith startled and glanced up immediately. He gaped as he spotted Lance, up on the roof, with no coat on, arms wrapped around his sides, shivering violently.

“Lance, what the fuck?” Keith called. Lance was stuck up on the roof. His boyfriend, the planner, the one who always warns Keith about being safe, was stuck up on their roof.

Fucking hilarious.

Keith couldn’t help it as he let out a loud guffaw, his whole body convulsing as he bent over himself not able to stop as his boyfriend glared down at him.

“Hardy har-har. Yeah, real hilarious Keith! Just keep laughing!” Lance called as he watched his so called love of his life wipe the last few tears from his eyes.

“Hold on, let me get a picture real quick. The others are gonna lose their shit.” Keith quickly pulled out his phone despite Lance’s protests. After a couple of snapshots and a quick send to the groupchat, Keith finally grabbed the ladder, setting it up as Lance explained what happened.

“I got impatient waiting for you to come home and decided to surprise you by putting some of the lights put up, then the ladder fell and I’ve been trapped up here for four hours!” Lance practically whined, clinging to Keith for warmth after he was safely on the ground.

“Why didn’t you just call me?”

“Oh why didn’t I think of that? Gee Keith, I sure could’ve used that thinking four hours ago! If only I hadn’t left my phone in our house!” Lance spat out, although from the way his lips were turning blue, Keith ignored the biting sarcasm.

“Lance don’t make me stick you back up there. Maybe you deserved to stay out here, in this weather.” Keith pointed out despite the fact he was wrapping his jacket over Lance to help warm him up and escorting him back inside their home.

“Keith please! I’m a summer baby! I can’t handle the cold!” Lance gaped before sneezing as they stepped inside the kitchen. Keith snorted shoving Lance gently towards the couch as he opened the cupboards, preparing all the hot chocolate fixings. Once he was done making the drink, Keith headed into their living room, seeing his boyfriend all snuggled up on the couch with Keith’s jacket and two cozy blankets. Their cats abandoned the tree and decorations in favor of curling up next to Lance instead, demanding head scratches from the human. Lance happily pat them, content with life at the moment right before he smiled seeing the hot drink Keith brought him and thanked him, quickly opening the blanket for Keith to crawl in beside him, which Keith did so. The two snuggled up next to each other and their cats, nothing else to distract them except for each other’s warmth.

 

                                                                                                    **Twin Beds**

“Yes! We’re almost there Keith!” Lance cheered, checking the time estimate on his phone and nearly smacking his boyfriend who as also driving, in excitement.

It was their first christmas together as a couple and they were going to spend a week at the family lake house with Lance’s family, much to Keith’s nervousness and Lance’s joy at all the mischievous opportunities to plant mistletoe around the house and have an excuse to smooch his boyfriend in public. Even if there weren’t any mistletoe, Lance was determined they were gonna be locking lips at some point during their stay, since this year, Lance got a room to just him and Keith this year!

Lance had explained to Keith that in years previous, Lance had always been stuck sharing a room with his brother Emilio, whose snoring resembled the sound a foghorn made.

“But this year, I have an amazing boyfriend so that means we get our own private room!” Lance had gushed when he proposed the plan to Keith who just shrugged.

“Sure okay. Sounds fun I guess.”

“That’s the spirit!”

‘Damn my eagerness,’ Keith thought as he drove. He was already regretting saying yes. It was one thing to spend so much time around Lance when it was just the two of them, but then the aded pressure of his family, things could get crazy. Between Lance’s seven siblings, their crazy dog Crusher, and Lance’s dad Edmundo, Keith was unsure whether this trip had been agood idea but Lance was very excited and Keith was touched Lance really wanted him to spend Christmas with his family, so reluctantly, Keith shoved all negative thoughts back and forced a smile.

As they finally pulled up in the long driveway, Lance bouncing in his seat the entire time, Keith could see the upper floor of the lake house in the distance, his low whistle showing how impressed he was.

“Oh wait till you see the inside, we have a game room and theres a hot tub on the deck! Which you and I will be using at some point if you know what I mean.” Lance winked.

“Christ, how much money does your family have?” Keith asked surprise as the whole house came into view. It resembled the style of a mountain chalet. The huge windows and deck facing them as well as several cars parked in the driveway. As Keith put the car in park Lance turned to him with his trademark grin.

“Technically it belongs to my abuela’s friend. They let us borrow it from time to time whenever they’re not using it.” Lance stated as he hopped out of the car, Keith following suit.

“They must be pretty great friends.” Keith noted eyeing the impressive jetskis and speedboat parked out in the open.

“Yeah! My abuela goes hunting with them! They’ve been hunting buddies for years!” Lance stated, grabbing as many bags as he could carry and hurrying towards the front door, leaving a shocked Keith at the car, frozen at Lance’s words.

“Your abuela hunts!?”

                                                                                             ________________

“What the..? This is an outrage! I demand to speak to a manager!” Keith sighed as his boyfriend stood there, hands on hips, looking the spitting image of a problematic customer in an arts and crafts store. It had only been ten minutes, eight of them spent having gone through a round of hugs and introductions from Lance’s relative’s and roasts on behalf of Lance’s siblings. After all the greetings had been done, Lance and Keith were shown to their room by Carmen by order of their mother. Indeed they had gotten a private room to just themselves, and with a beautiful view of the lake, the only problem was the room was inhabited by twin beds.

“Why are there twin beds? What happened to moving the queen in here?” Lance asked confused, turning to question his younger sister about the ordeal as Keith shrugged and walked over to one bed, collapsing in a heap, sighing at the comfiness of it all.

“Dad was supposed to do it, talk it over with him.” Carmen threw his way and headed back downstairs, Lance at her heels yelling for their mom. Keith moaned not caring about anything as he made himself at home, eyes falling shut for a second.

His eyes opened into slits moments later when he heard voices and footsteps approaching. Keith yawned barely paying saying awake as Lance entered the room, loudly complaining to his mom about it while she sighed, looking so tired and done with everything. It couldn’t be easy planning christmas for your entire family only for one of your kids to complain about something sort of pointless.

“Honey I’m sorry, I know you were very excited about having your own room this year, and we’re very glad Keith is spending it with us, but with everyone visiting this year, we have to make do, be glad I didn’t stick you two on a pull-out couch with your cousins. Besides, Keith seems to be settling in just fine. Look, he’s sleeping already, don't wake him up!” Maritza shushed Lance in a harsh voice earning a snort from Keith as he watched the pout pop up on Lance’s face.

Maritza smiled down at him as Lance turned to him with a betrayed expression. “Dinner will be ready soon Keith, don’t forget to wash up ok?” Keith gave her a thumbs up, too tired to lift his head but smiled when he heard a bemused chuckle. Maritza turned to Lance, giving her son a peck on the forehead, having to bring him down to her height in order to do so, and patted his back.

“Don’t forget, dinner at 6:30. There’s always next year, mijo.” She stated and walked away, her footsteps fading away leaving the two to themselves since they first arrived. Lance groaned walking over and sprawling on the other bed as Keith finally looked up.

“Lance its really not a big deal. I’m sure we’ll survive.” Keith stated. They were practically glued at the hip, often sleeping over at Keith’s since Lance was still staying with Hunk and Shay.

Lance shrugged in response. “I know but I was really looking forward to being with you..in..other ways if you catch my drift.” Lance sighed as Keith’s cheeks reddened instantly.

“Lance! We’re around your family!” Keith hissed, the nerve, the audacity of his boyfriend! Lance having realized what Keith imagined, quickly scrambled for an excuse, face as red as a tomato.

“I meant cuddling! Gah, not that way! Geez Keith! My whole family is here! We’d have no privacy for stuff like that!” Lance cried, obviously flustered. Keith watched his boyfriend for a bit, tracing over Lance’s features before coughing to draw the other’s attention.

Lance turned towards Keith confused until he saw Keith’s arms widespread, as if he was asking for a hug which Lance quickly understood and smiled. Throwing himself up, Lance hurried into his boyfriend's waiting arms, quickly planting himself by Keith’s side on the small twin bed, the both of them curling around each other and relaxing. 

It was a tight squeeze for both of them, but with Lance halfway laying on top of Keith, his head resting on Keith’s chest, their arms encircled each other’s waists, they both managed to fit. Before they drifted off, Keith began softly combing his fingers through Lance’s hair, Lance giggling at the soft touch before turning his head up and kissing the inside of Keith’s wrist. They laid there just a little bit until Keith softly spoke, not wanting to completely disturb their blissful atmosphere.

“Honestly, I’m just happy I get to spend this Christmas with you by my side.” He stated earning a soft “D’aww” and sleepy kiss of appreciation from Lance. With that said, the two curled up, easily drifting off in each others arms.

                                                                                       ________________

Carmen headed over to the lovebirds room, having strict orders to go get for dinner. With a quick rap of her knuckles on the door, Carmen opened the door slightly, an embarrassing retort quick on her lips before it died as she instead shook her head at the sight.

Her doofus older brother was curled up with Keith on the tiny twin bed, the both of them somehow finding room, their limbs entangled with one another. Carmen softly shut the door, deciding they would have to see them later, seeing as they were both exhausted from their trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So slightly sad announcement, this will be the last chapter I upload of this series. I may come back to it, I may not, but right now my heart is in other places. Thank you for all your kind words and kudos.


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